It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.
