It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
