It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure 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 numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass 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, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough 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 its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
