It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked 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 the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar 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 deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
