It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. 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 dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“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,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
