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It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.

The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method

Largely, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent 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 insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”

An Industry Full of Followers

Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.

Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate 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 chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).

The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

A Noble Yet Challenging Fight

And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely everyone would support that idea.