It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours 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 trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
