It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation 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
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
