It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The 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 over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “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 told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as 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 over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for 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 Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
