It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention 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 just start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
