It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort 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 Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
