It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely 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, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as 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 solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis 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 win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
