It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, 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 messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, 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 dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone 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 “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
