It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
