It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
