It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. 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 insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross 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 acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
