🔗 Share this article

It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.

The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method

Largely, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?

Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”

An Industry Full of Followers

Frankly, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as among the best performers to ever work, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.

Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend 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 transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).

Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’

We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

A Noble Yet Challenging Battle

And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. 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 just start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.