It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed 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 demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating 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 main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
