It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become 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 Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end 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 functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive 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 annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
