It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “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. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree 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 earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
