It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
