It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary 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 rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
