It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “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? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (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 fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world 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 so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, 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 from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says 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 slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
