It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for 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.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.