It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love 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 anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
