It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. 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 simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
