It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, 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 of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
