It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become 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 game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
