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It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.

The Legend of His Acting Method

Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?

Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”

An Industry Full of Followers

To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.

In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

Contemporary Followers of the Method

The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).

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

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

An Admirable But Uphill Battle

And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.