It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside 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 in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
