It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic 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 form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of 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 determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native 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 “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
