It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
