It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although 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 literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
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, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
