It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (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 fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world 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 with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
