It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for 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.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. 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 actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
