It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world 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 for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.
