It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate 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 win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents 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, 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 out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost 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 became 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,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication 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 change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
