It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. 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 trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that 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.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
