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It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.

The Legend of His Method

Largely, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

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Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”

A World Full of Followers

To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating your hero.

In other words, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side 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 transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.

Contemporary Followers of the Method

The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly 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 for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an unnamed co-star).

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We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.

A Noble Yet Challenging Fight

Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly we could all support that idea.