It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
