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It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.

The Mythos of His Acting Method

Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?

Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”

A World of Imitators

Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered 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 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 emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.

In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).

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

We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.

A Noble Yet Challenging Fight

Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.