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It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.

The Legend Surrounding His Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?

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

Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”

An Industry of Imitators

To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.

In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication 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 attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).

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There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

An Admirable But Uphill Battle

Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.