It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into their roles. 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 transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
