It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in 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, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
