It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with 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 decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
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 behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
