It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they invest in 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 with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.