It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent 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 decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents 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 the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
