It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique 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 I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life 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 aghast at the world that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get 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 foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
