It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And 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?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, 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 other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent 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 decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months 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 in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
