It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed 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 dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, 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 from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches 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, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
