It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, 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 nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted 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 they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during 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, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
