It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with 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 chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became 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 co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
