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It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.

The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method

Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

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

Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”

An Industry Full of Followers

Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (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.

In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).

Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

An Admirable But Uphill Fight

And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.