It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. 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 an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. 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 actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. 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 simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
