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It’s been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.

The Mythos Surrounding His Method

Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?

Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his frustration at how the Method technique 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 acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”

An Industry of Imitators

Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.

Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life 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 Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).

The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’

We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass 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. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

A Noble But Uphill Fight

Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.