It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
