It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting 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 I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only 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 determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
