It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become 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 during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. 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 from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have 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, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps 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 begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
