It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree 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 for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently 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 individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance 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 dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
