It’s 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 work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
