It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers 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 main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
