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It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.

The Legend of His Acting Method

Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?

Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”

A World of Imitators

Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.

Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for 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 main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).

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

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

A Noble Yet Challenging Fight

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.