It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important 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. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment 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 the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
