It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside 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. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.