It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “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 someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (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 fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
