It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests 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 sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is 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 his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently would appear 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 about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention 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 more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
