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It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.

The Legend of His Method

Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for 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?

Currently, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for 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 exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated 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 during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle

Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.