It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days 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 told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape 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 for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes 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 support that idea.
