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It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.

The Legend of His Method

Primarily, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

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Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”

A World Full of Followers

To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.

In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.

Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.

Contemporary Method Practitioners

The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).

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There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

An Admirable But Uphill Fight

Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.