It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
