It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
