It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment 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, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
