It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel 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 perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
