It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
