It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for 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 populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
