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

The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method

Largely, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?

Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”

A World Full of Followers

Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re regarded as among the best performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.

Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The main Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).

Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’

We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants 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 begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.