It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though 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 feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
