It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent 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 for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. 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 became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
