It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers 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.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps 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 just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
