It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – 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 game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like 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 transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
