It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases 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 the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-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 (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback 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 wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
