It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like 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 over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals 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 his actions (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
