The actor famous for intensely immersing himself in film roles has spoken out about the technique and the attempts of others to ape it
I
t has been a while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he issued the statement “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor,” in 2017 before the release of The Phantom Thread, the man quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, it’s fair to say that his legend grew somewhat.
Largely, this legend revolved around his favoured style of working. As someone who famously prefers to disappear into his characters while making a film – for Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the duration of the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed and skinned himself for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed food for My Left Foot?
However, now Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this as an opportunity to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
