It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 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 trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into 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 whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
