It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, 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? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
