It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
