It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
