It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. 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 whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern 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 subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
