It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed 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 behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
