It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, 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 at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best 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 solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
