It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
