It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
