It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with 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 in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
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. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
