It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject 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,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
