It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, 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 all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes 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 simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
