It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could 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 process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
