It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently would appear 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 New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are 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, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
