It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged 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 involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing 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, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
