It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop 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), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
