It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases 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 tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy 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), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during 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.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention 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 begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
