It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign 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 into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals 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 for Man on the Moon that filmmakers 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 Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
