It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
