It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people 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 a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want 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 strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
