It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with 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 in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes 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 simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
