It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat 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 has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express 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 I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
