It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, 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 perceived. “I’m a little cross these days 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 an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall 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. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
