It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone known for 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. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly 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 a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life 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 approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
