It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut 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 approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown 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 The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
