It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for 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 fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating 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 foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe 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 just start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
