It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for 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 attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication 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 short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
