It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for 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 trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-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 would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
