It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have 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 still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging 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 remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
