It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals 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 tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort 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 over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
