It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear 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 New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, 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 behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
