It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement 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 legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian 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 “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although 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 in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
