It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end 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 attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts 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 those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
