It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree 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 trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during 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, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
