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It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.

The Mythos of His Method

Largely, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, 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. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”

A World Full of Followers

Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are 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 enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic their idol.

Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side 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 became functionally Italian for a year and a half in 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 items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).

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

We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle

Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.