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

The Mythos of His Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?

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

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”

An Industry of Imitators

To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered among the best performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement 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 imitating your hero.

In other words, we exist in a landscape full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, 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 for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The foremost Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).

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

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

An Admirable But Uphill Fight

Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall 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. Certainly everyone would get behind that.