It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (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 full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. 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 spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
