It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days 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.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than 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 dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently 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 derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [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 abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
