It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during 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, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
