It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated 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 game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
