It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases 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 often concentrate 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 a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours 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 their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
