It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? 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?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re 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 enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. 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 whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.