It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
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 sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep 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 Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
