It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy 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 other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for 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, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently seems 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 magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. 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 actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
