It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply 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 those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
