It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop 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 other actors will attempt to emulate that example 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 show the world the extensive degree 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 earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach 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,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. 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 continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe 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 simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
