It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year 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 approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
