Anya Taylor-Joy has offered her explanation for why "method acting" — staying fully in character for the duration of a production — is a practice almost exclusively associated with male actors. Speaking to Complex while promoting the Apple TV+ series Lucky, the actress suggested women rarely have the freedom to lose themselves in a role in this way because of other responsibilities they must juggle, describing acting instead as a form of "controlled psychosis" that she deliberately keeps in check with help from those around her.

Taylor-Joy said friends and colleagues will address her by her character's name to check in if she seems too immersed, and stressed that maintaining a method approach on set full-time would be unfair to the hundreds of crew members she works with. Her comments echo a similar point made by Natalie Portman in 2024, who called method acting "a luxury that women can't afford." The article also cites well-known examples of male actors said to have used method techniques, including Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot and Lincoln, Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon, and Adrien Brody in The Pianist, while noting that Day-Lewis has defended the approach against recent criticism.