It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for 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.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll 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,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year 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 in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
