It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star 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 while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar 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 decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people 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 support that idea.
