It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat 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: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side 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 attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is 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 out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
