🔗 Share this article

It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring 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 reputation has only grown.

The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?

Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”

A World of Imitators

Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.

Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns 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).

Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’

There are 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 continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

An Admirable But Uphill Fight

Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.