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It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.

The Mythos Surrounding His Method

Largely, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?

Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”

A World Full of Followers

To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.

In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is 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 out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).

Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’

We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight

And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all get behind that.