It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people 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. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently 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 basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
