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It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.

The Mythos Surrounding His Method

Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”

A World of Imitators

Frankly, 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 regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.

Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect 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 this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from 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 into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

Contemporary Followers of the Method

The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).

The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

A Noble But Uphill Battle

And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes 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 simply start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.