It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly 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. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, 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. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined 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 as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants 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 just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
