It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool 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 became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
