It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
