It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort 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.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason 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 imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
