It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal 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 what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
