It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. 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 spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star 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 ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
