It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people 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 stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool 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 transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed 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 on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
