It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days 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 imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
