It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during 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 really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this 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 using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, 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 their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
