It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for 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 fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
