It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience 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, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators 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 win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects 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 to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
