It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial 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. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary 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 became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, 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 make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
