It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
