It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown 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 Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. 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 ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool 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 transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
