It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in 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 fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.