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It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.

The Mythos of His Method

Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?

Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this 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 someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers in history, and your approach includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.

In other words, we exist in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

Contemporary Followers of the Method

The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).

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

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.

An Admirable But Uphill Fight

And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.