- 2 days ago
In the words of Laurence Olivier: "Why don't you just try acting?"
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Method acting has become a big topic in recent years, with some actors widely against it
00:05and others using it to improve their performances.
00:09Most of the time, method acting is relatively tame, refusing to break character between
00:13takes, things like that.
00:15However, there are instances where some actors take it to extreme levels.
00:19Driven by their unwavering commitment to their respective roles, these actors push themselves
00:24to dangerous and often controversial extremes, from physical transformations to psychological
00:30turmoil.
00:31Actors who took method acting way too far.
00:34Ashton Kutcher in Jobs
00:36Ashton Kutcher played Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the 2013 biographical film Jobs.
00:42The film followed the early days of Steve Jobs as he developed the first Apple computer with
00:47Steve Wozniak, creating one of the most significant technological breakthroughs in recent history.
00:53To prepare for the title role, Ashton Kutcher spent many hours researching Jobs' life,
00:58and even found himself in the hospital with pancreatitis after trying to mimic his unusual
01:03diet.
01:04Jobs famously experimented with a fruitarian diet, with Kutcher stating that Jobs was interested
01:09in the healing properties of fruit, and that he also drank a lot of carrot juice.
01:14Kutcher would drink carrot juice non-stop until he felt a shooting pain in his back one day
01:19and had to be sent to hospital.
01:21My pancreas was like crazy out of whack, then I'm getting freaked out like oh my god I've
01:26become Steve Jobs, the actor said.
01:28Kutcher's wife Mila Kunis disagreed with the method acting her husband was trying, which
01:33considering those health issues is completely understandable.
01:36Val Kilmer, The Doors.
01:37Parodied in just about everything from Wayne's World 2 to The Simpsons, it can be hard to
01:43recall just how much Oliver Stone's Jim Morrison biopic The Doors influenced the 90's
01:48era widespread revival of the late 60's hippie burnout aesthetic.
01:52The film reenacted the counterculture of the time to a T, prompting then contemporary artists
01:57to crib from their deceased forebearers and keep the crusty, not cigarettes laced vibe of
02:03the decade alive.
02:04This film though is anchored by a much mocked performance from Val Kilmer, which upon re-inspection
02:09anyway, is actually a lot more subtle and convincing than critical appraisal might have you presume.
02:14Kilmer went all out to get into character, learning over 50 songs from the band's back catalogue
02:20in order to embody Morrison faithfully in actually singing for the film's concert sequences.
02:25However, eventually the artiste took the masquerade too far, leading an embarrassed Kilmer to insist
02:31that a memo telling cast and crew to refer to him only as Jim Morrison went on set was only
02:36meant for his people, and not the production at large.
02:40Sure thing Jimbo, we all believe ya.
02:42Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse.
02:45Robert Pattinson has admitted that method acting pushed him over the edge while portraying
02:49his character in Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse.
02:52The Batman star has said that every time he shot a scene where his character was drunk,
02:56he too was basically unconscious the whole time.
02:59The actor also revealed that he ate mud in order to get himself into character, saying,
03:03because you're playing a mad person, it means you can sort of be mad the whole time.
03:08Well, not the whole time, but for like an hour before the scene.
03:10You can literally just be sitting on the floor growling and licking up puddles of mud.
03:15Pattinson would also spend time spinning around in circles before takes to make himself off-balance.
03:20He also placed rocks in his shoes to get into the right mentality.
03:24It was crazy. I spent so much time making myself throw up, pissing my pants.
03:28It's the most revolting thing. I don't know. Maybe it's really annoying, he said.
03:32Sounds like it might have been annoying for the other people on set, Robert.
03:36Tom Hanks cast away.
03:37Tom Hanks probably isn't the first name that might come to mind when you think of famous method actors.
03:43In fact, we're almost sure, fit as the thespian is, that he actually never ran the breadth of America
03:48during the making of Robert Zemeckis' 1994 Best Picture nominee, Forrest Gump.
03:53That said, the actor did commit to his next Zemeckis collaboration with incredible zeal, gaining £50 only to then lose
04:00£55 more mid-production
04:02in order to play the titular stranded delivery man of 2000's Castaway.
04:06The actor's commitment didn't end there though, with Hanks avoiding both haircuts and beard trims during filming
04:12and developing a serious wound when a cut from the coral reef resulted in a severe staph infection.
04:18Luckily, like Aldous Snow before him, Hanks didn't succumb to the leg wound and was patched up in time to
04:23finish production.
04:24Whether or not he actually shagged Wilson for real though, has never been revealed.
04:29Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole
04:31To prepare for his role in Rabbit Hole, Aaron Eckhart pretended he'd lost a child.
04:36Yep, you heard me right.
04:37While on The Howard Stern Show in 2014, Eckhart opened up about the drastic methods he took to prepare for
04:43the role of Howard Corbett,
04:45who lost his four-year-old son in a car crash.
04:48Eckhart attended a real support group for parents who had lost children
04:51and created a fake story about losing a child himself.
04:55Eckhart described breaking down in tears at the support group,
04:58describing the life and death of his fake child after getting lost in his own fabrication.
05:02He said,
05:03Oh yeah, 100% I lost it.
05:06You really believe that you just lost a child?
05:08You're as close to reality in that sense as possible.
05:11I don't want to be rude to people who have lost a child,
05:14but yeah, you feel right there.
05:15You feel like your character.
05:17Many people weren't happy when Eckhart admitted this,
05:20suggesting that instead of pretending to lose a child, Eckhart should have sat in on the support group
05:25and listened to other people's stories instead of making up his own.
05:28Hilary Swank, boys don't cry.
05:30Hilary Swank has impressed in roles ranging from Clint Eastwood's devastating boxing drama Million Dollar Baby
05:36to frothy rom-com and awful accent classic PS I Love You.
05:40But it's one of her earliest roles that best encapsulates the actor's commitment to her craft.
05:46For director Kimberly Price's Boys Don't Cry, a devastating biopic of trans man Brandon Tina,
05:51the actor lived in costume for a month before shooting commenced.
05:54In order to embody the role, Swank also cut her hair and dropped her body fat percentage to a beyond
06:00slim 7%.
06:01At the time, it was unprecedented.
06:04And although Swank only made a mere $3,000 for the entire shoot, the actor did go on to win
06:09the Best Actress Oscar.
06:10Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV.
06:13Sylvester Stallone's dedication to his character, Rocky Balboa,
06:17showed that the actor was willing to put his body on the line to portray the iconic boxer.
06:21And that's exactly what he did.
06:23Stallone pushed his body to the limit, undergoing an intense training program so as to portray Rocky as a powerful
06:30force.
06:30He wanted the fight scenes in Rocky IV to be as realistic as possible,
06:34telling co-star Dolph Lundgren, who played Ivan Drago, to punch him in the scenes they filmed together.
06:40During one take, Stallone received a heavy blow from Lundgren, causing the actor to spend nine days in the ICU
06:46with a severe chest injury
06:48and delaying filming for two weeks.
06:50However, the actor didn't immediately go to the hospital when he received the blow.
06:55Stallone insisted they continue filming, with the crew not knowing how badly Stallone was actually injured.
07:01It was only when his condition worsened after shooting finished for the day that he was rushed to the ICU.
07:06Mickey Rourke, the wrestler.
07:08Mickey Rourke's career revival initially came about via a supporting role in Robert Rodriguez's styled crime thriller Sin City,
07:15adapted from Frank Miller's comic series of the same name.
07:18Not to mention, though, also playing the antagonist in Enrique Iglesias' classic music video Hero,
07:23easily the peak of his career.
07:26However, the actor proved his commitment to the craft and earned critical plaudits
07:29to match the height of his earlier career with 2008's The Wrestler,
07:33a naturalistic Darren Aronofsky drama which followed the titular down-on-his-look sportsman
07:38as he navigated an alien career, aging into irrelevance and the difficulties of fatherhood.
07:44Critics adored the tender, brutal turn, a far cry from Sin City's over-the-top theatrics,
07:49and Rourke was firmly accepted back into Hollywood after his moving performance.
07:53It came at a cost to the actor, though, with Rourke risking his health for the role.
07:58The actor was trained to fight by real-life wrestling coaches and sustained a handful of injuries during filming,
08:04as well as stopping by the WWE Studios to fight Superstar Jericho.
08:08Yes, really, that actually happened.
08:11Rourke was also engaged fully for the less glamorous elements of the film,
08:14actually picking up shifts in the deli his character works at for the sake of pure realism.
08:20Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon
08:21Jim Carrey's transformative performance in Man on the Moon showcased his dedication to method acting like never before.
08:29Portraying the enigmatic comedian Andy Kaufman, Carrey delved deep into the character's psyche,
08:35blurring the lines between reality and fiction.
08:37He reportedly stayed in character even when the cameras weren't rolling,
08:41going so far as to adopt Kaufman's mannerisms and quirks in his everyday life.
08:46Carrey's intense preparation for the role involved studying Kaufman's every move,
08:50watching hours of footage and reading extensively about his life.
08:54He even sought out Kaufman's friends and family, seeking their insights and advice.
08:59Carrey was described as a menace on set by his co-stars,
09:03who said that he would stuff his pockets with Limburger cheese and hug everyone on set.
09:07It's also been said that Carrey would hurl insults at the crew and director
09:11and even try to communicate telepathically with the crew.
09:14Carrey disappeared so much into the role that director Milos Forman would eventually state,
09:20I really can say that I never worked with Jim Carrey.
09:24I mean, is that a compliment? I'll let you decide.
09:27Jamie Foxx rate.
09:28Some actors try to stay in character during shoots.
09:31For example, in his Oscar-winning performance as Irish artist Christy Brown,
09:35Daniel Day-Lewis not only learned to write and paint by foot,
09:38but also never left his wheelchair for the entire shoot.
09:41That's commitment, but some stars actually need physical assistance to manage to get to this level.
09:47So Arduous is the task ahead of them.
09:49So, when Jamie Foxx signed on to play R&B superstar Ray Charles,
09:53the actor slash singer slash comedian initially struggled to get into the role due to Charles' blindness.
09:58Well, that was until the production convinced the star to allow them to glue prosthetic eyelids over his own eyes
10:05while shooting,
10:06rendering him effectively blind during filming.
10:09The technique led to panic attacks early on as Foxx understandably struggled to adjust to the extreme measure,
10:15but it eventually resulted in an Oscar as well as widespread critical acclaim for his work in the role.
10:20Choi Min-sik in Oldboy.
10:22Choi Min-sik brought an impressive depth and intensity to his character in 2003's Oldboy.
10:28To embody that complex and tormented nature,
10:31he subjected himself to extreme physical and psychological preparations.
10:35He isolated himself for weeks, depriving himself of human contact and immersing himself in a state of seclusion.
10:42The actor also ate an entire live octopus and branded his own skin with hot wire for every year his
10:49character was imprisoned.
10:50It takes some special dedication to be willingly scarred for life for a role.
10:55His commitment shone through the screen,
10:57with audiences appreciating the authenticity and unwavering dedication the actor had Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot.
11:05Daniel Day-Lewis is one of those actors who's known for their constant method acting,
11:10with most of his extreme efforts paying off with award-winning performances.
11:14While preparing to play the character of Christy Brown who suffers from cerebral palsy in My Left Foot,
11:20Day-Lewis visited a cerebral palsy clinic to better understand the condition and the people who suffered from it.
11:26However, his preparations didn't end there. Instead, they went to the next level.
11:32Day-Lewis demanded to be spoon-fed by crew members just as his character was fed in the film
11:37and would even be carried around the set between takes.
11:40The actor would often refuse to leave his wheelchair pretending to suffer from the condition as his character did
11:45and was even seen visiting restaurants in his wheelchair too, acting like his character even when he was away from
11:51set.
11:52Now there's no denying that Day-Lewis' dedication to his craft is nothing short of extraordinary
11:57and his off-screen antics usually pay off.
12:00My Left Foot earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1990, the first of three times he would
12:06bag that coveted prize.
12:07Shia LaBeouf, Fury.
12:09Shia LaBeouf has pulled some incredible stunts for an actor who started his career in Disney's Holes and Michael Bay's
12:15Transformers franchise.
12:16Whether it's auditioning for Lars von Trier's controversial Nymphomaniac by sending the director a sex tape
12:22or taking part in a series of bizarre performance art pieces over the last few years.
12:27But he truly upped his game for Fury.
12:29A cracking World War 2 movie co-starring Brad Pitt and somehow made by Suicide Squad helmer David Earre.
12:36While the hyper intense war movie, LaBeouf committed to realism wholesale by refusing to shave, cut his hair or even
12:42bathe during filming.
12:44Until Pitt told him to give it a rest and behave anyway.
12:46Despite this impediment, LaBeouf nonetheless returned to form by cutting a scar into his own face between takes,
12:53according to co-star Logan Lerman, who claims the actor kept a handful of genuine facial wounds open throughout the
13:00shoot.
13:00Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer
13:03Dustin Hoffman fully embraced the role of Ted Kramer, a father navigating the trials and tribulations of single parenthood while
13:10filming Kramer vs. Kramer.
13:12However, Hoffman's dedication towards the role reportedly ventured way too far.
13:17According to journalist Michael Shulman in a Vanity Fair profile on Meryl Streep, Hoffman's co-star in Kramer vs. Kramer,
13:24Hoffman attempted to generate more emotion and increase the intensity of the elevator scene by taunting Streep about her recently
13:32deceased boyfriend John Kazal,
13:34prompting Streep to leave the studio in a rage.
13:37Another instance reportedly saw Hoffman slap Streep across the face, unprovoked, while filming the opening scene, leaving a red mark.
13:45Hoffman's insults would also reach other cast members including seven-year-old Justin Henry,
13:50with Hoffman getting him to cry during a scene by telling him he may never see some of his crew
13:55member friends ever again.
13:57This made Henry so upset that he reportedly couldn't stop sobbing after the scene was filmed.
14:02Hoffman has admitted that his method acting was driving everyone nuts, as he tried to fill every single scene with
14:08more emotion.
14:09Robert Pattinson, Little Ashes
14:11Critics weren't kind to 2008's Little Ashes, a biopic of surrealist painter extraordinaire and occasional fascist sympathiser Salvador Dali,
14:20despite the evident effort that then Twilight star Robert Pattinson put into his central performance as the troubled artist.
14:26Its heart was in the right place, and Pattinson himself certainly deserves serious praise,
14:31having taken on the risky role of the artist while still being known for his parts in Harry Potter.
14:36Still, though, was there really any need for the actor to actually masturbate on screen during one of the film's
14:43sex scenes?
14:44Pattinson apparently refused to fake an orgasm, resulting in a take in which the real thing is preserved on screen.
14:51Apparently it made him consider quitting acting entirely, until the offer for Twilight came through a few days later after
14:58the scene was done.
14:59With this in mind, I can only hope that he didn't make the same commitment to spilling his beans for
15:04Lighthouse, given how much self-love that would require.
15:07Adrian Brody in The Pianist
15:09In The Pianist, Adrian Brody played the Polish-Jewish pianist and Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Spilman.
15:15I really hope I said that right, and I apologise if I pronounced that horribly.
15:20Brody showed his commitment to the role via the brutal preparation process he put himself through before filming began.
15:26Director Roman Polanski made Brody practise the piano for four hours a day until he was able to do a
15:32spot-on impression of his character's work.
15:35Not only that, but Brody himself felt that he had to become the character he was playing.
15:39So he sold his car, his apartment, most of his belongings, and withdrew from the public eye for months.
15:45He also broke up with his girlfriend at the time, as you do.
15:49The actor also went on an extreme diet to lose 30 pounds in six weeks, living off two boiled eggs
15:55for breakfast,
15:56a little chicken for lunch, and a small amount of fish or chicken with steamed vegetables for dinner.
16:00Brody admitted to IndieWire that he was depressed for a year after The Pianist, opening up about the mental toll
16:07he suffered from the role.
16:08It paid off though, as Brody became the youngest person ever at the age of 29 to win the Oscar
16:14for Best Actor.
16:15Nicolas Cage, Vampire's Kiss
16:17How much of it is method and how much of it is just Nick Cage being Nick Cage is an
16:22eternal question that has plagued film fans
16:24ever since Francis Ford Coppola's most infamous nephew began to grace our screens in the 80s
16:29and repeatedly prove that there was a thin line between crazy commitment to a role and, well, just everyday craziness.
16:36Take 1992's bizarre satirical sort of horror Vampire's Kiss for example.
16:41Here Cage went above and beyond when preparing for the role of a stockbroker who convinces himself he's becoming a
16:47vampire during a mental breakdown
16:48or the role of a vampire who's a stockbroker depending on your read.
16:52While filming Cage actually ate a real cockroach rather than a prop one for one shot, enraging the animals trainer
16:58in the process.
16:59Director Robert Biermann later admitted that although he was happy with the first take of the scene,
17:04he actually made Cage shoot it two more times since he was annoyed with him about something unrelated.
17:09Of course Cage was already well acquainted with the method, having had two of his teeth pulled to play a
17:14Vietnam veteran in Birdie,
17:16saying he wanted to know quote, real pain for the role.
17:19So with that in mind, who let this man appear in a HP Lovecraft adaptation?
17:24We're lucky he really didn't awake one of the old ones during filming just to be as authentic as possible.
17:30Jamie Dornan in The Fool
17:32Jamie Dornan took method acting to the extreme when he decided to stalk an unknown woman to prepare for his
17:38role as a serial killer in the TV series The Fool.
17:41Surely there was a better way to get into character than this.
17:44In 2015, Dornan admitted to the LA Times that he followed a woman off the train in the London Underground
17:50and pursued her for a little while before stopping.
17:52He said,
17:53I followed a woman off the train one day to see what it felt like to pursue someone like that.
17:57I really kept my distance.
17:59She got off a few stops earlier than I was planning, so I said, right, I have to commit to
18:03this.
18:03I followed her around a couple of street corners and then was like, what are you doing?
18:07To make matters worse, Dornan explained that stalking the woman felt kind of exciting.
18:12In a really sort of dirty way, he said, but that he wasn't proud of himself for going to that
18:17extreme.
18:18Unsurprisingly, after Dornan revealed his stalkerish ways, it didn't go down very well on Twitter.
18:23It goes without saying that stalking someone is never okay, whether method acting or not.
18:28Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant.
18:31Not content to be outdone by his uber famous method actor core star from Scorsese's masterpiece Gangs of New York,
18:37Leo attempted to go method some years later and earned his first Oscar after decades of nominations in the process.
18:43For Alejandro Iñárritu's The Revenant, the director's follow-up to his acclaimed Birdman the year prior,
18:49DiCaprio put himself through actual hell.
18:52To play the put-upon real-life figure of frontiersman Hugh Glass, DiCaprio actually ate raw bison meat,
18:58swam in freezing rivers and even, apologies to those of a sensitive disposition,
19:02slept inside raw animal carcasses in order to get inside the mind of his character.
19:09I mean, who does he think he is? Bear Grylls or something?
19:11Fortunately for him, this mad commitment paid off big,
19:14as the film was showered with praise, sweeping the Oscars as well as impressing at the SAG Awards and the
19:20Golden Globes.
19:21Which, all things said and done, isn't a bad reward for putting up with Luke Skywalker's regular sleeping conditions.
19:26Finally, I want to read it a year later,
19:26clip it over and aboutконs.
19:27That is so good.
Comments