It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people 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 a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into 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) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy at the moment seems 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, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
