It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in 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 trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year 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, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants 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 just start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
