It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent 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 insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor 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 seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
