It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal 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 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 just start making more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
