It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost 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 formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
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 behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
