It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people 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 “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
