It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And 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 talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing 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. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
