It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end 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 whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
