It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
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 invest in their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats 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 as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
