It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly 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 told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they 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 currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
