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It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend expanded further.

The Legend of His Acting Method

Primarily, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for 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 over-the-top performances?

Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”

A World Full of Followers

Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.

Essentially, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

The Modern Method Practitioners

The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).

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

We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.

An Admirable But Uphill Fight

And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.