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It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.

The Legend of His Acting Method

Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”

An Industry of Imitators

To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.

In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world 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 earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent 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) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).

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

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

A Noble Yet Challenging Battle

And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.