It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with 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.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
