It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that 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: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off 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 details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during 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 that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
