It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in 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 want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we exist in an environment full of imperfect 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 with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall 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. Certainly we could all support that idea.
