It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did 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? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays 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 acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree 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 win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
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 subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says 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 for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.
