It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, 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, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
