It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored 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 how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for 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 exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like 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 over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
