It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people 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 superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
