It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree 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 dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people 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 “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating 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 practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, 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 practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
