It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat 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 approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall 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. Surely everyone would get behind that.
