It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel 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 the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half 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, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended 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. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
