It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors 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 solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal 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 make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
