It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “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 seems is meant to imply that someone is 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 always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
