It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut 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 favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes 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 start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
