It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. 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 spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
