It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown 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 Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims 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 an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
