It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (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 attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although 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 filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
