It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
