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It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.

The Legend of His Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

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

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.

In other words, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. 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 attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The main practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), 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 either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).

Daniel Day-Lewis 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 rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

An Admirable But Uphill Battle

And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.