It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
