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It has been quite some time since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.

The Legend of His Acting Method

Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

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

Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”

A World of Imitators

To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best actors to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.

Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators 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 earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).

Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’

There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

A Noble But Uphill Battle

Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely we could all support that idea.