It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming 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, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy 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 fellow performers will attempt 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 show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into 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 dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
