It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, 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 am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off 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 often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for 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 Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
