It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included 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 during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear 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 critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for 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, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
