It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months 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 that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour 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 demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
