It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into 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 main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.
