It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 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 fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. 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 entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims 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 an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
