It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals 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 a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
