It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation 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” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include 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 inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created 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 spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for 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.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject 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,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
