It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. 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 attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process 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 about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
