It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in 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 fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear 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 about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing 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 the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
