It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “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 I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop 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), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent 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 deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
