It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
