It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “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 psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
