It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as 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 became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll 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 would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
