🔗 Share this article

It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.

The Mythos of His Method

Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?

Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”

An Industry of Imitators

Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.

In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. 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 entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).

The actor says he ‘never intended to retire, really’

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.

A Noble Yet Challenging Battle

And, 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 what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.