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It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.

The Mythos Surrounding His Method

Primarily, this legend centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?

Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

Frankly, this sounds like the actor has come out from seclusion and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.

In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool 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 as preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).

The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

A Noble But Uphill Fight

And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.