It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true 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 insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. 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 like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
