It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? 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?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, 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 these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, 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), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
