It’s been a long while since the public 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 release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days 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 fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants 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 additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
