It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate 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 determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
