It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation 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 of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
