🔗 Share this article

It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.

The Mythos of His Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become 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? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”

An Industry of Imitators

To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.

In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).

The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.

A Noble Yet Challenging Battle

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.