It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
