It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion 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 immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
