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It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.

The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method

Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?

Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?

Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “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 behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”

An Industry of Imitators

To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop 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 other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.

In other words, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign 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 (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The main Method Guy currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive 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,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).

The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’

We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.

A Noble But Uphill Fight

And, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps 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 begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.