It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
