It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent 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 deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
