🔗 Share this article

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

The Legend of His Acting Method

Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?

Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.

In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get 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 foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).

The actor says he ‘did not plan to retire, really’

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months 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 with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

A Noble Yet Challenging Battle

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, 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.