It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate 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 in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
