🔗 Share this article

It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.

The Legend of His Method

Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?

Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.

Essentially, we now live in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion 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 into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The foremost Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).

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

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle

And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all get behind that.