It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for 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.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
