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 quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as 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 his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
