It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. 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 dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
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. 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. Surely we could all get behind that.
