It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as 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 lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film 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 all kinds of people talking carelessly 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 a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll 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 seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
