It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding 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, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – 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 Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. 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 attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-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 practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“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,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have 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 in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
