It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into 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.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have 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 still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
