It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like 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 became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
