It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (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 your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for 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.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And 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 causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
