It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during 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?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for 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 other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims 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 rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
