It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent 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 insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication 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 dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as 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 everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
