It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
