It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate 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, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
