It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off 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 often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
