It’s been quite some time 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 release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though 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 feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
