It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
