It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The 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 over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
