It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like 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 became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied 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 filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method 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 people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
