It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy 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 attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into 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 main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps 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 start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
