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It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.

The Mythos Surrounding His Method

Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

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Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”

An Industry Full of Followers

Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours 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 trying to mimic their idol.

Essentially, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during 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.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The main Method Guy at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).

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

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight

And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.