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It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.

The Legend Surrounding His Method

Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?

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Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”

An Industry Full of Followers

Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.

In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.

Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for his colleagues.

The Modern Followers of the Method

The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I remember him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).

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There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.

An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight

Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors 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 what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.