It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-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 foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly 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 (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
