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It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.

The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

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

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People often concentrate 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. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.

In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.

Contemporary Followers of the Method

The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).

The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’

We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.

An Admirable But Uphill Battle

And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Surely everyone would get behind that.