It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during 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 imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And 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 out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
