It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement 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, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied 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 to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment 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 derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. 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 still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
