Anya Taylor-Joy’s objection to Method acting is less about artistic purity than basic workplace responsibility. Actors may spend months entering another person’s mind, she argues, but they still share a set with hundreds of colleagues who should not have to absorb the consequences.
“If you’ll notice, women don’t method act because we have things to take care of, so we can’t completely lose our minds,” Taylor-Joy said in a viral Complex News interview.
The actor, known for The Witch, The Queen’s Gambit and Furiosa, described performance as a kind of “controlled psychosis.” For as long as 16 hours a day, she said, actors adopt someone else’s thoughts, movements, clothes and surroundings. She compared a character’s presence in her mind to having “a sister or a roommate” temporarily move in.
That immersion sometimes follows her home. Taylor-Joy said people close to her understand the process and will use a character’s name when they sense that she needs to regain some distance. What she does not accept is turning a private technique into a problem for everyone else.
“If you’re too invested in being an asshole then that’s not gonna be very fun,” she said.
Why Taylor-Joy sees the issue as workplace labor
Taylor-Joy’s argument centers on who carries the practical and emotional burden when an actor remains in character beyond a scene. A film set depends on performers, camera crews, costume departments, makeup artists, assistants and many others completing tightly coordinated work. One person’s creative process can quickly become a production-wide obligation.
“You’re going to work with hundreds of people and it is your responsibility to be good to them and to help them do their best job,” she said.
Her comments gained further context when TheWrap resurfaced a July Hits Radio interview about the 2016 thriller Split. Taylor-Joy said she was “so grateful” that James McAvoy replaced an unnamed actor who practiced an immersive approach, because otherwise “it would have been a different experience.” She did not identify the original performer.
The remark suggests her criticism is not merely theoretical. It reflects concern about what scene partners may be asked to tolerate when extreme preparation crosses into daily working conditions. The camera may stop recording, but the rest of the production is still at work.
At the same time, Taylor-Joy clearly does not avoid deep transformation. Jonathan Tropper, co-showrunner of Lucky, described watching her change during filming as “almost like seeing a different human.” His account points to the distinction at the heart of her position: intense character work does not necessarily require staying disruptive between takes.
Other actresses have made the same argument
Taylor-Joy’s comments belong to a longer discussion about gender, performance and who receives permission to behave badly in the name of art.
In December 2023, Natalie Portman told The Wall Street Journal that the technique was “a luxury that women can’t afford.” Her phrasing closely anticipated Taylor-Joy’s point: women often do not receive the same professional or personal latitude to abandon ordinary responsibilities while preparing for a role.
Kristen Stewart expanded on that idea in December 2025. Speaking to The New York Times, she argued that acting is inherently vulnerable, submissive and therefore treated as “unmasculine.” In her view, some male performers may use highly visible intensity to place a layer of bravado around that vulnerability.
“Performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore quite embarrassing and unmasculine,” Stewart said. “There’s no bravado in suggesting that you’re a mouthpiece for someone else’s ideas.”
She then asked, “Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method?”
The question was rhetorical, and the historical answer is yes. Jane Fonda, Estelle Parsons and Ellen Burstyn are among the prominent women associated with the Method tradition. Lady Gaga and Meryl Streep have also described prolonged immersive practices, although those experiences illustrate why women such as Taylor-Joy and Portman question the personal cost.
Hollywood uses one label for different techniques
Part of the disagreement comes from a definition problem. The formal Method developed by acting teacher Lee Strasberg draws on Konstantin Stanislavski’s ideas and uses emotional memory and other exercises to create psychologically credible performances. It does not simply instruct actors to remain in character around the clock or antagonize colleagues.
Hollywood’s popular version of the term is broader. It can mean maintaining an accent off-camera, living under conditions associated with a character, undergoing extreme physical preparation or expecting others to participate in an actor’s invented reality.
Lady Gaga said she lived as Patrizia Reggiani for 18 months while preparing for House of Gucci and kept the character’s accent for nine months. She later said an on-set psychiatric nurse assisted her after she began losing touch with reality.
Meryl Streep used prolonged isolation while playing Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. She has said the loneliness of staying removed from her castmates made her abandon that approach afterward.
Those examples complicate Taylor-Joy’s categorical claim that women do not use immersive methods. Women clearly have. The sharper point is that the most publicized version, built around endurance, volatility and off-camera dominance, has frequently been presented as a masculine display rather than a structured acting practice.
Daniel Day-Lewis rejects the popular caricature
Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the actors most closely associated with immersive performance, defended his approach during the 2025 publicity tour for Anemone. At the London Film Festival, he said recent criticism often comes from people with “little or no understanding” of the technique.
“It’s almost as if it’s some specious science that we’re involved in, or a cult,” Day-Lewis said. He described the process instead as a way of becoming spontaneous enough to respond freely to fellow actors during a scene.
In a separate interview with Big Issue, he said the aim was to present colleagues with “a living, breathing human being they can interact with.” He also objected to the phrase “full Method” being associated automatically with instability or misconduct.
Day-Lewis and Taylor-Joy are not necessarily arguing about the same practice. He is defending a disciplined route toward truthful performance. She is criticizing the point at which immersion becomes permission to mistreat colleagues or withdraw from ordinary responsibilities.
No substantive response from Taylor-Joy or Day-Lewis had emerged by August 4, 2026. Still, the wider debate has clarified the real dividing line. The question is not whether an actor works intensely. It is whether everyone else must pay for that intensity.
