It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted 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?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration regarding 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 I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
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, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.
