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It’s been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.

The Mythos of His Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred style of working. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?

Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”

A World of Imitators

To be honest, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.

Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

Contemporary Followers of the Method

The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), 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 worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).

The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’

There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.

An Admirable But Uphill Battle

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Surely everyone would support that idea.