It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement 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 your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated 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 deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment 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 magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
And, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
Eva de Vries is a passionate book lover and local writer from Eindhoven.
