Method acting is a technique actors use to get into character. It involves immersing oneself in the role and sometimes taking on some character traits. It became popular during the 1950s when Lee Strasberg introduced it at his Actor’s Studio in New York City.
What is Method Acting?
Method acting is a technique of many characteristics where an actor immerses themselves in the role. It’s a way of acting that strives to be as authentic as possible, using personal experiences and emotions to connect with the character.
To do this, method actors will often take on new names while filming. They may also change their appearance or even wear their own clothes from home!
Some of Hollywood’s greatest actors have used method acting. Even after filming wrapped, he still refused food or drink other than liquids through straws due to how much work he put into getting into character.
Here are 3 examples of actors who got too deep into their character through method acting. They produced an undeniably excellent performance, but at the same time, the technique affected their real-world lives!
Robert Di Niro – Taxi Driver
I am pretty confident that you know and have watched the movie. Anyway, here is a very brief recap about Taxi Driver:
Taxi Driver is a 1976 vigilante film co-written and directed by Martin Scorsese, set in New York City following the Vietnam War and starring Robert De Niro. The movie tells the story of Travis Bickle, an alienated taxi driver in New York City who attempts to rescue a 12-year-old prostitute he befriends from her pimp and falls in love with her.
Taxi Driver was nominated for 4 Academy Awards:
- Best Picture
- Best Director (Scorsese)
- Best Supporting Actor (De Niro)
- Best Film Editing.
In 2012, it was ranked 33rd on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest American films of all time. Taxi Driver won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.
De Niro won several critics’ awards for his performance, establishing him as an icon of modern cinema. This takes us to the main point of this blog post: Di Niro’s preparation and embodiment of the character, aka method acting.
How Robert Di Niro became Travis Bickle?
To get into the headspace of a lonely Vietnam vet with mental issues and a death wish, De Niro took on the role 24 hours a day. He lived in New York City before filming began so he could get accustomed to being there. He was also supposed to stay in character during breaks from shooting.
Scorsese reportedly had trouble getting De Niro out of character because he would start talking about how “Travis” felt when something happened. It was hard for him to separate himself from his role. But once they began production, things got even weirder than that. He would go around New York City dressed like Bickle and talking like him too!
De Niro took his preparation to the next level, spending a year living in character. He would talk to himself in the mirror and make himself angry before going set. He wore his own clothes and props that the character would have, including an M-1 carbine rifle from Vietnam War! To further prepare for the role of Travis Bickle, De Niro also obtained a taxi driver’s license and listened to a taped reading of the diaries of criminal Arthur Bremer over twenty times during production.
He also lost 30 pounds and took firearm training to prepare for his role in the Taxi Driver.
His dedication paid off when he won an Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Travis Bickle in 1976.
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant
The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, has earned much praise for its gritty depiction of 19th-century America.
The movie is based on the real-life experiences of frontiersman Hugh Glass.
DiCaprio plays Glass, while Hardy portrays John Fitzgerald, the man who abandoned him in the wilderness after he was attacked.
In an interview with Deadline about the film, DiCaprio said that he and his co-stars have committed to getting into character — even if it meant going too far.
“I think we all went too far,” he said. “But that’s the nature of our jobs as actors.”
So how did Dicaprio become the character?
In preparation for his role as Hugh Glass in The Revenant, the actor lived off the land in freezing conditions and ate raw bison liver for breakfast. The movie was shot in Calgary, Alberta, and Canada’s Banff National Park, where temperatures could reach as low as -25°C (-13°F).
DiCaprio said: “I think that I went through a lot of those same emotions [as Hugh Glass] while making this movie — but I don’t have any scars or bear attacks.”
It’s said that he ate raw bison liver during filming—a choice that may have been influenced by his desire to maintain a sense of realism. “I wanted it to be as visceral and immediate as possible,” DiCaprio explained his approach in an interview with Variety.
He didn’t just eat the animal organs; he spent much of his time on set sleeping in a hole in the ground or wrapped up like an animal carcass. This wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it helped him gain insight into what life was like for Glass:
“You’re out there, and it’s brutal and painful,” he said in another interview with Collider.” It becomes almost hallucinatory at times where you’re not sure if you’re awake or asleep anymore.”
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
No list of method actors can skip the late Heath Ledger in his last movie, The Dark Knight.
In The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger plays the role of the Joker. His performance was so good that it was, and still is, considered one of the best performances in any comic book movie to date. Did you know that he got so into his character that he actually stayed in character even off-set?
Ledger would terrorize the cast members with threats and abuse and even went as far as to slash tires on their cars. He even had a personal assistant who would follow him all day, ensuring he didn’t hurt anyone while they were filming.
Like Heath Ledger, Christian Bale took his role as Batman very seriously. While filming for The Dark Knight Rises, Christian Bale injured himself when he attempted to jump off a building onto a moving truck below him and broke his ankle in the process. He still finished filming despite this injury!
We should be talking about Ledger’s performance here, but I wanted to briefly talk about Bale as an honorable mention 🙂
So back to the main subject:
How did Heath Ledger become the Joker?
While preparing for the role, Heath Ledger didn’t just take inspiration from The Joker’s comic-book counterpart. He also spent much time with Mark David Chapman and other criminals. They had been imprisoned for their crimes against society. He even visited the San Quentin prison in California to get a feel for what it would be like to be locked up behind bars.
Heath Ledger was a method actor who took it to the extreme. He wasn’t just good at being someone else; he became them. He immersed himself in his character’s world until he could no longer separate himself from the role.
In the months leading up to The Dark Knight, Ledger lived in an isolated apartment where he could be left alone and focus entirely on becoming the Joker. He studied everything from clowning to dance theory to nail the character’s physicality and movement.
Is the method acting overrated?
Ultimately, it’s about finding a character and getting into their headspace. That doesn’t mean that all actors should do this.
Method acting is nothing if not controversial. Achieving “unity” between the actor and the character has gotten more than a few actors into trouble. At its best, method acting can produce results (many would argue even Oscar-worthy performances). Let’s say that method actors often go to extremes. If they’re lucky, they only end up in the funny pages. However, it’s happened that actors have hurt themselves and even died because of their method acting techniques.
Hollywood over-glorifies method acting, maybe to appreciate the hard work, dedication, and sometimes suffering the actors must endure in preparation for their roles. But then I also think of all the great performances and excellent actors that did not use this method and still gave life performances.
I am not judging here, and I would not be able to say that one method is better than the other. At the end of the day, every actor does what works for them. What matters is the end result. As audiences and Hollywood (as critics), we should consider the final product when deciding on the quality and realism of the performance rather than getting overtaken by the stories behind the performance. This is just a personal thought 🙂
