It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. 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 simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
