It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
