It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop 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 fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle 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 what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
