It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become 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 for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry 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 among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort 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 entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
