It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express 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 ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate 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 principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out 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 approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation 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 their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
