It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate 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 a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (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 fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating 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 main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
