It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
