It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did 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: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants 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 more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
