It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
