It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself 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 as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side 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 trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals 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 during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
