🔗 Share this article

It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.

The Mythos Surrounding His Method

Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?

Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”

An Industry Full of Followers

Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.

Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool 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 transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed 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 foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).

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

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during 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 dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.