It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in 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 entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating 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 at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks 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 work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them 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.
