It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (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 trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost 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 derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
