It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
