It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
