It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as 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 as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
