It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to 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 of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked 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 as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
