It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method 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 make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
