It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is 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 always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-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 practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, 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 behaviour. Maybe 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 more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
