It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort 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 and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for 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 immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And 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 full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing 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 that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
