It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for 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 an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of effort they invest in their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
