It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in 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 exist in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted 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 out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
