It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
