It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by 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 involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
