It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
