It has been a long while since anyone 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 quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases 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. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers 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 Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method 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 formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.