It has been quite some time 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 release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became 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 (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people 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. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
