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It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.

The Mythos of His Method

Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?

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Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”

A World Full of Followers

Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as among the best performers in history, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.

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 dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.

Contemporary Followers of the Method

The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall 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 rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

A Noble Yet Challenging Fight

And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.