It’s 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 cease to work as an actor, 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 Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible 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 takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
