It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems 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 superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
