It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world 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 trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
