It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things 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 told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-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 (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
