It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement 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. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed 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 The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end 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 transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during 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 Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
