It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of 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. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation 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 internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
