It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people 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 stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, 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 been created in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach 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 (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
