🔗 Share this article

It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.

The Legend Surrounding His Method

Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?

Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” 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-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”

An Industry of Imitators

Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself 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 includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.

Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).

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

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.