It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during 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 now live in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
