It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The 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 over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours 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.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is 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 personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps 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 simply begin producing more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
