It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, 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 who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming 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, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into 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 whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. 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 full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
