It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in 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 attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
