It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop 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 fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating 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 foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
