It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, 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, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
