The Method Actor Who Wasn’t
FIRST OF ALL, You don’t want to take away from the guy’s achievement. He’s earned the respect of his fellow Academy artists and he’s produced an impressive body of work. It appears they have a taste for physical and emotional masochism, the awards tend to go to those who suffer.
There’s a much spouted fact that so many percentage of Oscar winners are Method. That’s a lie, very few recent winners are actually Method. Instead what you have is the situation where people are calling it Method, but it isn't. Lets add to that the fact that actors know that the Academy has a taste for masochism and then you can see them ‘suffering’ their way to the Oscars! In general, I personally find most of his performances OVERSTATED, scene stealing – perhaps not so much in Lincoln, but in his other work – his performances demand attention. I prefer the kind of film where the audience get to follow the story, not sit marvelling at someone’s performance.
CORRECTION
Daniel Day Lewis has not spent one MINUTE as a Method actor, the Method refers to the techniques derived from Constantin Stanislavski – made most popular by the American acting teachers Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner and Stella Adler – but Strasberg and the Actors Studio is probably the most famous. But it’s a popular misconception that Day Lewis is a method actor – he’s what people have come to call MEthod acting, they call that kind of Immersion – Method acting. So what he did was, he pretended to be Abraham Lincoln for a year, nice job if you can get it – you know Dee, if the average person were to pretend to be a dead president for a year, they’ve get sent off to a special hospital, but this is actively encouraged. You know, if you’re a fraud, a fake, an imposter and you spend a year pretending to be something, after a while, certain elements of behaviour may stick, but you’d always know you weren’t the person you were ‘being’.
Mark SEATON
My friend, a researcher in Australia Mark Seaton has done research into what he calls post-DRAMATIC stress, he’s very concerned with the psychological strain that’s placed on someone when they deeply immerse themselves, particularly in emotionally traumatic roles.
FIRST TIME HE USED IT.
Unbearable Lightness of Being -seems like first time he really seems to have ‘immersed’ himself. But he was WONDERFUL in My Beautiful Laundrette, which was made before it.
PEDOPHILE?
And he picks his project well, I presume that if he picked his next role as a notorious pedophile, he wouldn’t spend the next year ‘in character’ – because it would be too abhorrent.
POSSIBLE REASON WHY HE WINS
The ‘Method’ has been the dominant acting technique in the United States for the past seventy years or so, the Academy is full of Method actors, or those that seem to look up to any actor that is willing to submit themselves to long and intense periods of immersion. Film performances are constructed in the editing room, I hope the first person that he thanked was Michael Kahn, the film’s editor for making the performance.
SHOULD EVERYONE DO IT?
I certainly don’t think it needs to be immersive, I think if young actors are sitting out there thinking that’s the way they need to do it. Daniel Day Lewis himself, he called himself ‘possibly self delusional’, but his brand method and I would state that’s with a small ‘M’ works for him, personally- But it’s not for everyone – most actors don’t have the luxury to immerse themselves over that amount of time. At the end of the day, regardless of technique – could he just be a good actor?
To You, the Best
COACH