WATCH MORE - Want to learn more about why women don't often get to "method act" like men do? Here's our TAKE on Hollywood's real reasons: th-cam.com/video/gQk66BUfBgk/w-d-xo.html
The best actor in the world - Anthony Hopkins - isn't a method actor. All of these privileged clowns who jerk themselves off because they're being paid millions to play a role are mostly assholes who are pretending there is some mystic special quality to their 'craft'. There isn't. Anyone can do it. They were just lucky (wealthy enough) to be able to do it. They were just lucky to have a right surname to do it. Or were pretty enough to do it. Or had a friend in the industry. Hollywood doesn't contain people of enormous skill (there are some talented people), it is populated by nepotism babies, privileged assholes, rich MFs and 'friends of a friend'. Hollywood isn't art (99 percent). It's an industry designed to make money. No shade on actors (except for them sometimes being shitty people) for grabbing success and money when and where they can. It's all about money when it comes to giant corporations. The NDAs, the 'happy talk' promotion interviews, etc... Literally, none of the glitz is real. It's all just marketing. Maybe we should ask if there are any 'method actors' in low budget theater? And do people who run it tolerate such BS?
The reason is that most men NEED to use method acting to get into character - as they are much less fluid with their emotions , psyche, thoughts, and intuition. Most women are naturally able to tap into and out of dark feelings, and they are also more naturally able to self-analyze and be in touch with their thoughts. They simply don’t need to use “method acting” to get full in character. There’s no sexist agenda. It’s just a cruel and excruciating way to act that most women have the LUXURY of not needing to endure or use.
Oh, please. Don't claim that women are somehow victims who aren't allowed to method act when you showcase several examples in the video, as well as highlight a very famous one TWICE. You can't have your cake and eat it too. No one is oppressing you. You're just claiming to be a victim when you're not.
Famously, on the set of Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman, who was literally passing out during shoots after depriving himself of sleep for several days to get into character: "My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?"
That story is always trotted out like clockwork, but it didn't actually happen. Hoffman has cleared that up many times. It's still a great "story" though and can probably be attributed to many, many actors.
Same with Natalie Portman practicing ballet. She is cultivating a particular physique and had to film some basic dance sequences and poses. They needed to match up with her dance double. So yeah, there seems to be some confusion here...
So in short: it’s mostly male actors who do it and misbehave in the name of their art and it’s mostly actresses who suffer the consequence. Imagine Viola Davis doing what Leto did. Yeah. She’d be done in Hollywood.
Same with male directors. I would highly recommend to anyone Sarah polleys book of essays run towards the danger. She was a child actor and did a great essay about how male directors were abusive yet it was dismissed because they were hailed as geniuses
Jared Leto should have been fired for that. That’s not method acting that’s him being a creep and terrorising rest of the cast. Worst Joker ever on top of that
The thing about method acting that gives is so much backlash, is the way it’s presented as the ultimate form of commitment to your art. By implication, actors who learn their lines and make their marks, are taking the easy route. The plain fact is that most actors have to rely on their technique, because to make a living and can’t afford to invest time and effort into a role. In other words, Method Acting is something for the privileged few.
My guess is that the recent backlash against Method Acting (or that what is perceived as Method Acting) is not so much directed at its techniques and means themselves, but at the fetishising of it. Nothing is more likely to get an actor awards consideration then a carefully planned media campaign about how much effort and preparation he put into the role. Also Method Acting is often identified with playing eccentric, bombastic, larger than life characters and extreme physical challenging roles, the kind of acting that is easy to point at and say: wow, that’s good. Consequently, the fascination with how much actors suffer for their art, almost always comes at the expense of the more nuanced, low-key performances and more commonplace characters, the kind of acting that is so good and natural that you forget that you are watching a performance. Perhaps that’s why Donald Sutherland never won an Oscar
Great points! I really appreciate subtle acting. Also, you don’t have to be the character 100% of the time in order to method act. Think about all the amazing performances out there that didn’t need to be method acted. That is a really great actor. That is someone who is talented. Someone who can do the work, be the character, and then walk away a balanced person off set.
Joaquin's Oscar speech, which was very briefly excerpted at 8:04 is wrongly cited as "Method." He wasn't being obnoxious or being inappropriate; he has been an animal rights activist, environmentalist, and vegan for nearly his whole life and these are issues he feels very passionately about. There is of course a very robust discourse about celebs using awards acceptance speeches to get on their soapbox, especially when it's just a lil hypocritical (I'm looking at you, Leo Yacht DiCaprio!) and there have certainly been people who cited this speech as an example of this, but context is so important. Joaquin is an introvert in an extrovert profession and he clearly was very anxious making that speech, but he pushed through the anxiety to shine the spotlight given to him in that moment to issues he felt needed to be elevated. Even if you want to somehow call the majority of his speech "soapboxing," there is no denying the painful sincerity of the last part of the speech, when he quoted his brother, the late great River Phoenix, who himself was very ahead of his time in the 80s, alerting people to the urgency of animal rights and environmentalism (and who sadly is not known to a lot of media consumers today, so they don't have this context). It was surprising as he has been famously reticent about talking about his brother publicly after the grotesque media circus after River's death (the 911 call he made for River the night he died was played all over the news at the time so that was sadly kind of his introduction to mainstream recognition, so his resuming of his acting career a couple of years later was in the shadow of that) , and it was very moving to see him still coping with that very painful loss nearly three decades later. That's not Method. That's not acting. That's not Joaquin Phoenix being a downer. That was a man making his big brother very proud. Please, context matters.
I don't know if this counts as method, but I love that Margot Robbie gave Ryan Gosling a gift every day of their shoot, in character from Barbie to Ken. Or Cillian Murphy diving into learning about physics for his role in Sunshine and again in Oppenheimer. That's the kind of method acting I want to hear about.
It's kind of funny how people talk about Austin Butler's extreme method acting for Elvis by saying things like, "He didn't see his family for 3 years!" yet leaving out the important part about the movie getting shut down in the middle of production for the minor hiccup of a global pandemic.
For those of us who have directed others, you know every actor has their own process to get where they need to go. I don't mind the technique at all, as long as they aren't hurting themselves or others. The thing about it is, you never hear about method acting for "happy" characters. How fun would it be if people were method on a comedies?
Sean Penn was method in _Fast Times at Ridgemont High._ He insisted that people refer to him as Spicoli, changed the name on his dressing room to Spicoli, and probably got into Jeff Spicoli's mental state, too.
That's exactly what I was thinking. No one minds the Method as it applies to going all in for happy characters. Bet the same people who complain have no problems with the process when its to their benefit.
Staying in character 24/7 is just an excuse to be a jerk. If you can't turn your character on and off, it's not acting. That's why you never hear about any positive examples of it because it's just an ego trip.
Viggo Mortenson in LotR also utilized some method acting, and pretty much the whole cast and crew in the bts commentaries describe him as quite the gentleman and fr-nice guy.
@@amyp2779 you literally did not understand my reply to your comment: Marylin Monroe was not switching in and off character. Nicole Kidman notoriously spoke with a Russian accent in and off set while shooting Nine Perfect Strangers, but that's only the latest example, because it has been reported that she's often remains in full character. Daniel Day Lewis immerse himself into the characters 24/7, but no one has ever reported of him being a jerk. And so on and so forth.
Natalie Potrman did ballet for hours a day because she needed the muscle memory of a professional ballerina. Same thing with actors playing soldiers, martial artists, cowboys etc. You cannot just act that.
There’s a difference in learning a new skill so you can better depict a role and depriving yourself of food/sleep/ whatever and acting weird & obnoxious to “get into character”
What they're doing isn't even method acting. Method acting just means using past experiences to aid your performance; you need to be sad? Think of something sad that happened to you. That's it, you're now a method actor. All this staying-in-character crap is just self indulgent narcissism.
Proposal: We gather the most problematic male "Method actors" together and cast them in an movie about how a group of problematic Method actors learn to set healthy boundaries between themselves and their art and be respectful toward their colleagues. Feign a big media and Oscar campaign based on how deep they go into their characters. It might just work.
next project: every person in the world act in a 'movie' about how humanity achieved world peace and lived in harmony ever after, solving climate crisis etc.. you get the point
Method acting is like that one coworker who pushes themselves to exhaustion taking no breaks, while everyone else is taking lunch breaks and 15 min and is getting the same results. It’s just not impressive
One story that always stuck with me was how Jim Carey started shit with Jerry Lawler because he “felt that’s how Andy would act” but Lawler in interviews talks about how he and Kaufman were friendly and they planned the whole thing together. Like, you think you’re magically tapping into a dead man but you’re completely off track.
What bugs me about these countless video essays or article pieces about "method" acting is the frequent inaccuracies about what can be considered as the ridiculousness of the "Day-Lewis" method (which is the method that people & general public think of when they hear "method" acting, rather than the Stanislavski/Strasberg one). For example, Phoenix asking the dentist for prosthetic to create his clinched jaw look for The Master, I wouldn't consider that as being included in the ridiculousness of "method" acting, if anything that is just the normal routine of an actor crafting their character from the way they think their character should look like physically, i.e, no difference to an actor putting on certain makeup, certain walk, posture, speech, behaviour/ticks, etc to achieve a certain look for certain characters. That is it, it's not that big of a deal. It's not "unnecessary", that's just part of an actor's tasks, making decisions on how their character should look like. Cuz just from the look of the character alone, it can tell a little bit about their background story (subliminally). Unnecessary here means the way Daniel Day-Lewis asks the cast & crew to call him by his character's name and speaking as his characters EVEN when there really is no reason to (like when no cameras are rolling). Or like that absurd Jim Carrey documentary, staying in character for no reason when the cameras not rolling other than to bother and terrorize the director creating bad vibes on set, and then claiming he had "no control over his actions, because it was actually Andy Kaufman's ghost that made me do it". Now that is what unnecessary means when it comes to the infamous "method", not whatever Phoenix is doing. From what I read of various articles of the behind the scenes of his many films, or even from the directors he worked with, when the cameras are not rolling, he's just simply Joaquin, the actor, an inquisitive one as well, constantly asking the director questions about his character to better understand and studying his characters. Phoenix I would say is more aligned with the original Stanislavski/Strasberg kind of method, rather than the distorted absurd/ridiculous "Day-Lewis" method that the general public came to know today. Of course, this is not to bash Daniel Day-Lewis, cuz whatever he's doing, it seems to work magnificently for him, without creating actual bad vibes or discomfort towards his fellow co-workers. Same thing for Jeremy Strong, seems to give him great results, while not physically bothering his co-workers. See that type of "Day-Lewis" method is TOLERABLE. Is it still considered ridiculous? sure to some degree, but ultimately no harm done to others, hence tolerable. Now compare that to Jim Carey, or even Jared Leto who sent used condoms to Margot Robbie, bullets to Will Smith and dead animals to his fellow cast members of Suicide Squad, then yes, that is absolutely INTOLERABLE & RIDICULOUS alright, and well deserved to be condemned and roll our eyes to. Leto & Carrey's "method" is the issue here, and should be frowned upon regardless of whether it's a man, woman, white, or non-white that does it.
It can be a good choice when applied right. Ie: Meryl knew her status as an actor would be akin to her character’s in “The Devil Wears Prada” so she was intentionally very distant with fellow actors and it served to create an atmosphere when she was in the room. Also, if I were in a film and doing a dialect, I would stay in that voice 24/7. It needs to sound lived-in.
While David Suchet was portraying Hercule Poirot for the BBC series back in the day, he'd stay in Poirot's Belgian accent all day during shooting. He even did an on-set interview speaking in the accent because "I can't turn it on and off."
It's music theatre but a lot pf the acting teachers at music theatre courses at Uni borderline ban you from method acting Their reasoning is that last thing we need is to have a bunch if actors open up old worlds or past traumas for work when you can just learn the technique to be a good actor safely
How come it's never extremely kind and thoughtful characters that actors seem to method act as? It does raise a question (and this isn't totally my opinion) but how good of an actor are you if you have to "experience" the entirety of your character? Research is one thing, accent and dialect practice is another but to me it's more impressive if you can just slip in and out of character without "totally becoming" the character
We also need to look at actors who used the method WITHOUT hurting themselves or others. It is possible, and they are successful because understand their own boundaries before going into it
I don't care how Jeremy Strong prepared to be Kendall Roy every week. It must have been exhausting but he created a fascinating and sympathetic character without a single knowing smirk to the audience. That performance will be studied for decades.
I blame Jared Lato for ruining it. I would HATE receiving rat or spend more shooting time in the set just because my co-actor can’t behave like a normal person.
Actors/Actresses gaining or losing weight or wearing prosthetics for a role is NOT Method Acting. It's called gaining or losing weight and wearing prosthetics. Learning to drive a taxi, work on a farm, or master the piano is NOT Method Acting. It's research and prep work. Actors often remain in character while on set because the average 2-3 minute scene takes multiple hours and many different camera angles to shoot. The actor must sustain the same consistent intensity level over a period of 7.5 hours, and for as many takes that are needed; otherwise the scene is a garbled mess of continuity errors when pieced together in the editing room. So it makes better sense for actors to stay in character while on set in order to maintain focus. Women use method acting in film just as much as men do. Think of how often an actress is required to break down in tears or simulate giving birth in a film. These scenes take ALL DAY to shoot. Women use the same techniques men do to maintain a consistent energy level for filming multiple takes. Bad behavior is not the fault of Method Acting; it's the fault of bad behavior.. The reason why more men are called out on it is because men are more often cast to play violent roles. . ..
I honestly think you can work however you want, as long as you aren't making the jobefor everyone else harder. Be it cast members or Crew they are all important for the film and if you want to stay in you role, do as you pleased as long as you do not inconvinience everyone else.
Now Method Acting is just used as a carte blanche for Hollywood to explain away or minimize the crappy behavior of actors. So many actors are all, "Oh, I'm just really method with my process" to get away with cruelty. Like when was the last time you heard of an actor who was doing super amazing stuff for people around them and on set saying "Oh, I'm just really method with my process"? How does the level of disrespect to your fellow cast and crew help make a great collaborative project?
As a Theatre teacher this is the first time i see a video where they address the origin of what americans call "The Method". It's not only not the only method to exist, it's not even the better for its purpose. It's just the one the actors studio and Hollywood found more useful for the moneyprinting machine. Even Stanislavsky himself moved on from this first stage of his research into what's known as the method of the physical actions, which was followed by masters like Grotowski and Peter Brook. Industrialization of art attempts against art itself.
It all comes down to the centuries long tradition of romanticizing bad tempers and shitiness as part of artistic genius. For centuries we've not only ignored, but praised the shitty behaviors of mostly male artists in all mediums, we've called them passionate when they were abusive, we've called them focused when they were obsessed. When they were rude and disdainful we said they just cared too much about their work. When they abandoned family and people dependent on them we mockingly said that they didn't want anything to distract them from their work. When they engaged in dangerous and downright criminal behavior, we shrugged it off saying they were simply complex souls and minds, not made for the mediocre laws of the little common man. We said that they saw and felt the world in a more profound and elevated state of mind that we mortals were unable to grasp or comprehend. If there is something I like about contemporary life, is that we're less eager to excuse unethical behavior in the name of "artistic genius". Genius and commitment to an artistic endeavor shouldn't be a pass for unethical and downright shitty behavior, let alone abuse of power.
Thing is method acting can often be a shitty excuse for being an asshole, Jared Leto or Joaquin Phoenix famously, but there’s also plenty of actors who do go very far in method acting, but never treat others like shit for it, Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, even smaller stuff like Anthony Hopkins never talking to Jodie Foster, the way that a lot of actors playing villains might distance themselves from their co-stars, its not rude or hostile and it genuinely is fine becuz they’re professional. What Jared Leto does, beyond being a fucking awful asshole actor, is not even of any use to his performance, sending dead rats to your co-stars is not gonna make u seem more realistic as Joker in ur upcoming scene
Jeremy Strong is simply a genius. When he is in character, his gaze, facial expression and even voice are changing. Such actors appear only once in a hundred years.
My undergrad is in Theatre, I graduated in ‘93 our main acting teacher referred to method acting as “deliberately induced mental illness” and thought it was super unhealthy.
This reminds me of the way directors can sometimes go ‘method’ where they don’t even allow their actors to actually act but torture them into giving real fearful reactions. Like Friedkin on The Exorcist set where he felt he had to slap, shoot guns off, or literally physically hurt his stars to get the reactions he wanted, to the extent that Sydow at one point got genuinely upset because he felt like the director didn’t even let his actors act. Similar with the way Kubrick genuinely just treated Shelley Duvall like shit, yes it gives you the an amazing performance but seriously why not let the actors act rather than living that fear.
True method acting usually isn't a big problem (unless its negatively affecting their health, in which case they probably shouldn't do that), but the guys who use method acting as an excuse to be disgusting people in public are not ok ever. and as was pointed out in this video, it is usually male actors doing it, and its usually something they claim when they do absolutely abhorrent things, usually towards female coworkers. 'its just method acting wahh you can't be mad at me waahhh.' Its the 'learn to take a joke' skeevy excuse of actors. Robert DiNero doing taxi driver work is a great thing, but Jared Leto sending dead animals to his coworkers is disgusting and he should've been fired for that. That was harassment, no matter what he calls it.
Has anyone told these actors that they're not curing cancer, solving the crimate crisis or creating world peace? Like its just acting in a movie, it's not that deep babes Not disrespecting the medium, I love movies, I just think they need a bit of perspective
Austin Butler permanently damaged his vocal cords by going method. It is why he still sounds like Elvis, and will always sound like that. Method acting is mentally and physically dangerous and should not be encouraged. Yet, the Academy keeps awarding this toxic tool.
There has been theories on acting and what it means since at least the 18th century; French essayist Diderot called it "the paradox of the actor". You are not acting if you experience the emotions of the character. Method acting is not popular in France, and yet many actors give amazing and subtle performances. You don't need to damage both your mental and physical health to give a good performance. In any other field, that would be considered dehumanizing and the beginning of major burnout. In any other form of art, it would be considered extreme performance art, only without the magic of the silverscreen to protect you from the implications.
Somewhat of a sidenote but I think one of the reasons Jeremy as Kendall is so fantastic is because the choices he makes AS Jeremy FOR Kendall are the same choices Kendall would make if he were an actor, not a billionaire eldest boy. "He often isolated himself from the cast, which is exactly what Kendall would do." Trying to jump into the river is stupid and over the top though, and that's a point where he could have actually put himself or others in danger, which is imo when 'do it for the art' has gone too far.
Method acting is an excuse for actors to be a$$holes on set, like Robert Pattinson said “no one method acts to be a kind person” On the set of Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey claimed Jared Leto stole from him while playing Rayon On Suicide Squad Leto sent Margot Robbie a rat, delivered a dead pig on set, sent other cast members anal beads, condoms and bullets claiming Joker doesn’t respect other people’s boundaries. He even sent Jimmy Fallon a snake during an interview. All these acts were disrespectful to his cast members and disgusting to animals On the Morbius set, the director and cast complained that Leto remained in character as a disabled Morbius as he struggled for 45 minutes to go to the restroom, he took up so much time that the cast had to stop what they were doing to assist him to the restroom. Playing a disabled character is one thing, but mocking a disabled person is another especially when you are someone like Jared Leto climbing mountains and the Eiffel Tower. The problem is Hollywood rewards method acting, actors like Jared Leto who are notorious for creating toxic work environments thru method acting remain employed and rewarded Will Smith used the role he played as King Richard to slap Chris Rock at the Oscars Unfortunately method acting creates a Jekyll and Hyde effect, where the actor cannot dissociate himself from the character he is playing
Stanislavsky is said to the the founder of Method acting. His student was Strasberg. Strasberg came to America and bastardized “affective memory acting” into what America knows as “method acting.” When Stanislavsky saw what was going on, he wasn’t happy. So yes, he did turn his back in it later in life, but there was more to it. Now we do better and will continue to do better, but method acting truly can destroy an actor. I have seen it and gone through it. It’s not good for ur mental health. Plus; in my small world of theatre and acting, the ones that do this are bizarre and very difficult to work with.
Well no, because Strasberg's technique is fundamentally different from Stanivlavsky's and there's zero reason to think that Stanislavsky decided "yes, the old way of reciting lines in a theatrical manner is better than getting into the character to give a more emotionally realistic performance because I didn't like this American guy". Strasberg thought actors should use their own experiences to inform the performance, which Stanivlasvky did not. Which probably explains why e.g. Jeremy Strong insists he is NOT a method actor, because he's made it clear he does not use his own experiences when acting, he is trying to feel the character's.
Did anyone else notice the subtitles (auto-generated no doubt) on the clip of Austin Butler turned him saying “pieces of my DNA will always be linked in that way” into “LinkedIn that way”?
I don't know that Natalie Portman's doing ballet training was so much method acting as it was just being able to know how to do something physical so that it's believable on camera. If she's going to just go on film and not know how to actually move like a ballerina and do the steps when she's playing a ballerina then it would probably look bad.
I still think that this stuff was more a publicity-stunt to get her the Oscar in 2011. Of course she trained to do the movements. But 90% of all real dancing-scenes in that movie are visibily done by the stuntdouble Sarah Lane. They created this "Look how Portman immersed herself in that role"-drama to sell tickets, fool the crowd and win the Oscar...and all of it worked. If you want a movie where the actor goes full physical, look at Black Swans predecessor "The Wrestler". Mickey Rouke really did most of the stunts himself. Portman obviously did not.
Austin Butler’s vocal coach mentioned, his vocal cords have been permanently damaged. That is what method acting did, and why it is such a dangerous form of acting. Butler will never not sound like Elvis now. The damage was done and is irreversible.
Joaquin isn’t a method actor. And if he was there’s still nothing wrong with it. Losing weight and preparing for a role isn’t method. He has said it himself
another topic for you to talk about, if you havent already, is directors being obsessive and abusive during production. i think of the director of the exorcist who would yell, fire, and get physically abusive to the actors to get the 'proper performance' for the film.
And I still see Robert Mitchum as one of Hollywoods greatest actors. Because that man never acted, he just was there and made it! And to quote Charles Laughton, who directed King Lear on stage with him: "Mitchum was the best King Lear ever!"
What makes a method actor great is to get immersed into character to achieve a good performance, e.g.; Todd Phillips said Joaquin Phoenix lost his composture, while staying in character on the set of Joker. Actually, Robert De Niro and him didn't get along as Phoenix didn't like rehearsing before acting, so he made everything more difficult and chaotic. Moreover, everybody talks about his Joker's role, but people tend to forget about his performances in Napoleon & The Master, which are quite underrated.
If this is method acting, it isn't what a professional actor does. In theatre if you're off stage you are yourself, when you're on stage you're someone else. Thats it, that's acting. Acting is also about building a trusting relationship between others. For example: If you forget your lines you can trust a co actor to lead you into a prompt. Trust is broken when you can't be your normal self off stage. If an actor can cry on demand they're worth their salt. I can't do that yet. However I can fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, and be calm when exiting the stage. If acting is a job then treat is as such. It's not for a significant other and family to deal with. Leave your shoes at the front door.
Let actors do whatever works for them. Stop policing for no reason. If an actor fucks up and acts offensively, there's other ways to deal with that. Not to "blame it" on method acting.
I support method acting to a degree but not as far as many are taking it. And I don't agree with taking your own emotions and experiences and applying those. If you're truly diving fully into the character, that means that you're diving fully into the character, not into yourself. Regardless, whatever acting method that's adopted shouldn't be harming others. And, of course, women should be allowed to do what male actors are allowed to do.
It wasn't on account of methods, Napoleon was just bad; bereft of any charm, or charisma, or authority, or nuance. This man was the greatest general since Alexander, can we have some dignity for the character? Napoleon's brief cameo in The Count of Monte Cristo is better than that entire movie.
The fact that Joaquin in Napoleon is in the thumbnail (and the first example mentioned in the video) is hilarious. Not only did he not go method, part of why the film is being received poorly is for reasons that boil down to Joaquin going *against* aspects of the method (one of many examples within this: as opposed to trying to find a voice that would be historically accurate to the person, and therefore the most truthful, as one would in a method influenced process, his choice to eschew any ‘voice’ for his characterization of Napoleon and essentially speak in a version of his own natural cadence and accent). *also, Joaquin attempting to talk social politics/ the environment / animal activism in the Oscar speech, while I understand not agreeing or wanting someone of his occupation using that platform to speak to those things… the fact that this is equated to his being ‘Method’ is the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a video. The two have nothing to do with one another, and conflating the method with a need to speak to your own beliefs is absurd. I’ll never watch a video from the take again. Not because I disagree but because the amount of willful ignorance and or sheer stupidity in this video is egregious.
@@FrakkinToasterLuvva well, you're entitled to your favorite person. and personally, i don't believe you need to personally pull your teeth and mutilate yourself to put a command performance.
Mind you, the funniest thing about you bringing up Brian Cox and pretending is that he's the one who can't separate himself from Logan Roy in his interviews and keeps defending him and talking from his POV. It's very funny. Maybe he did do some method acting without realizing it, LOL Meanwhile Jeremy Strong gives very thoughtful and unbiased analysis of his character and other characters in his interviews.
I think trauma is central to all of the problems with The Method. IMO the technique itself is sound, but I think it can just traumatize actors while they research, or trigger them when it brings back memories that had been suppressed.
The Method isn't good; it isn't bad. It is one of many tools in an actor's toolbelt, and it must be used responsibly, like any other tool. Some actors prefer it over other tools. Others, like me, only use it when we absolutely have to, because effective though it is, it can be very bad for you both mentally and physically.
I think method acting can be good to deliver an outstanding performance, however the means of doing it opens up the excuse for abuse and the method acting itself a scapegoat for toxic behaviour. Actors who utilize the method can give themselves full creative viability and control, and if it means to degrade others to keep up the performance then that's just a casualty of the loyalty to the method. What needs to be done is regulation to what would be considered acceptable to an extent and that all actors have to agree to it and regulate their performance, otherwise they should be "fined" a certain amount or percentage if the use of method acting is proven true to causing distress emotionally, mentally, physically, and especially financially to others in the workplace.
Method Acting works and is a good technique. It’s the actors that sometimes misinterpret the actual technique. Daniel Day Lewis is by far the best method actor. Jared Leto is probably the worst. It’s all about how far the actor takes it.
This cannot be healthy, for the actors and their families. Can you imagine how confusing and scary it must be for their kids to have their parents be different person all together?
Phoenix is an amazing actor to watch, but his “method” I think is just being able and willing to air his deep seated mental health issues to craft a character. I believe he has some personality disorders that help his craft.
I thought Mickey Rourke, who won the Golden Globe, should have won the Oscar for best actor but he lost to Sean Penn in 2009. I think Rourke tapped into his own feelings in a role that suited him. Whereas Penn became a character nothing like himself. Yet I found Rourke’s performance more emotionally gripping and compelling.
No, because it is assumed that a writer has to get into the head of their character. But actors often used to just recite their lines in theatrical way, which is why Stanislavski came up with the technique of truly getting into a character to give a more realistic performance.
Really? Honestly I never heard much about that. As far as I know he used acting to learn to go out of himself. Perhaps he had problems with locked-in-syndrom or anxiety or something like that.
A lot of what is currently referred to as The Method is more of a bastardization of it. I'm not a huge fan of Method acting, but many of the latest examples are more about actors basically being self-indulgent a**holes in order to feed their own egos. Or to cover up their insecurities. Sally Field is a self-proclaimed Method actor, but we dont hear a lot of stories about her abusing cast and crew, or making life difficult on set. Just the opposite.
Doesn't it also depend on the TYPE of character the method actor is playing, in terms of his/her effect on coworkers? I imagine if Jason Sedakis decided to "method act" to get into the character of Ted Lasso, he would have behaved by giving out sound advice, thoughtful gifts, and just adding joy and positivity on the set of the show. It's only when the method actor is playing a "bad" character, that the behavior becomes a problem.
WATCH MORE - Want to learn more about why women don't often get to "method act" like men do? Here's our TAKE on Hollywood's real reasons: th-cam.com/video/gQk66BUfBgk/w-d-xo.html
Why does she have a discuss in her voice as she says male
The best actor in the world - Anthony Hopkins - isn't a method actor.
All of these privileged clowns who jerk themselves off because they're being paid millions to play a role are mostly assholes who are pretending there is some mystic special quality to their 'craft'.
There isn't.
Anyone can do it.
They were just lucky (wealthy enough) to be able to do it.
They were just lucky to have a right surname to do it.
Or were pretty enough to do it.
Or had a friend in the industry.
Hollywood doesn't contain people of enormous skill (there are some talented people), it is populated by nepotism babies, privileged assholes, rich MFs and 'friends of a friend'.
Hollywood isn't art (99 percent). It's an industry designed to make money.
No shade on actors (except for them sometimes being shitty people) for grabbing success and money when and where they can.
It's all about money when it comes to giant corporations. The NDAs, the 'happy talk' promotion interviews, etc...
Literally, none of the glitz is real. It's all just marketing.
Maybe we should ask if there are any 'method actors' in low budget theater? And do people who run it tolerate such BS?
The reason is that most men NEED to use method acting to get into character - as they are much less fluid with their emotions , psyche, thoughts, and intuition.
Most women are naturally able to tap into and out of dark feelings, and they are also more naturally able to self-analyze and be in touch with their thoughts. They simply don’t need to use “method acting” to get full in character.
There’s no sexist agenda. It’s just a cruel and excruciating way to act that most women have the LUXURY of not needing to endure or use.
@@amberjulia123women don’t have control over their emotions. what’s are you smoking?
Oh, please. Don't claim that women are somehow victims who aren't allowed to method act when you showcase several examples in the video, as well as highlight a very famous one TWICE. You can't have your cake and eat it too. No one is oppressing you. You're just claiming to be a victim when you're not.
Famously, on the set of Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman, who was literally passing out during shoots after depriving himself of sleep for several days to get into character:
"My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?"
we know
It's an apocryphal but very revealing story
@@justagirl36 No, I didn't know that
That story is always trotted out like clockwork, but it didn't actually happen. Hoffman has cleared that up many times.
It's still a great "story" though and can probably be attributed to many, many actors.
@@slayerduval1 Didn't it happen? How would you know? Hoffman said it didn't happen? That's proof as anything?
You can’t compare Robert DeNiro driving a cab to prepare for Taxi Driver to Jared Leto be rude to his co-stars.
Same with Natalie Portman practicing ballet. She is cultivating a particular physique and had to film some basic dance sequences and poses. They needed to match up with her dance double. So yeah, there seems to be some confusion here...
@@Squella7 agree. They were learning about the character not staying in it.
I agree, I think taking up the profession of the character is fine.
If the other of Jaraed Letos co workers had Method acted also he would have been killed by his co stars.
@@GabrielaGonzalez-ic2owwait till some actor gets arrested for trying to get ready for a role as a hitman
So in short: it’s mostly male actors who do it and misbehave in the name of their art and it’s mostly actresses who suffer the consequence. Imagine Viola Davis doing what Leto did. Yeah. She’d be done in Hollywood.
and even the fact that she has to be a good sport about it. it's sad how often the reaction gets more backlash than the bad action
this comment needs to be way higher
Same with male directors. I would highly recommend to anyone Sarah polleys book of essays run towards the danger. She was a child actor and did a great essay about how male directors were abusive yet it was dismissed because they were hailed as geniuses
A lot of these method actors are also just assholes irl anyway...
Jared Leto should have been fired for that. That’s not method acting that’s him being a creep and terrorising rest of the cast. Worst Joker ever on top of that
The thing about method acting that gives is so much backlash, is the way it’s presented as the ultimate form of commitment to your art. By implication, actors who learn their lines and make their marks, are taking the easy route.
The plain fact is that most actors have to rely on their technique, because to make a living and can’t afford to invest time and effort into a role. In other words, Method Acting is something for the privileged few.
My guess is that the recent backlash against Method Acting (or that what is perceived as Method Acting) is not so much directed at its techniques and means themselves, but at the fetishising of it.
Nothing is more likely to get an actor awards consideration then a carefully planned media campaign about how much effort and preparation he put into the role. Also Method Acting is often identified with playing eccentric, bombastic, larger than life characters and extreme physical challenging roles, the kind of acting that is easy to point at and say: wow, that’s good.
Consequently, the fascination with how much actors suffer for their art, almost always comes at the expense of the more nuanced, low-key performances and more commonplace characters, the kind of acting that is so good and natural that you forget that you are watching a performance.
Perhaps that’s why Donald Sutherland never won an Oscar
*Cough Hunger Games Cough*
Great points! I really appreciate subtle acting.
Also, you don’t have to be the character 100% of the time in order to method act. Think about all the amazing performances out there that didn’t need to be method acted. That is a really great actor. That is someone who is talented. Someone who can do the work, be the character, and then walk away a balanced person off set.
Really ? Sutherland has hammed it up and overacted in quite a few movies eg. Kelly’s Heroes.
Joaquin's Oscar speech, which was very briefly excerpted at 8:04 is wrongly cited as "Method." He wasn't being obnoxious or being inappropriate; he has been an animal rights activist, environmentalist, and vegan for nearly his whole life and these are issues he feels very passionately about. There is of course a very robust discourse about celebs using awards acceptance speeches to get on their soapbox, especially when it's just a lil hypocritical (I'm looking at you, Leo Yacht DiCaprio!) and there have certainly been people who cited this speech as an example of this, but context is so important. Joaquin is an introvert in an extrovert profession and he clearly was very anxious making that speech, but he pushed through the anxiety to shine the spotlight given to him in that moment to issues he felt needed to be elevated. Even if you want to somehow call the majority of his speech "soapboxing," there is no denying the painful sincerity of the last part of the speech, when he quoted his brother, the late great River Phoenix, who himself was very ahead of his time in the 80s, alerting people to the urgency of animal rights and environmentalism (and who sadly is not known to a lot of media consumers today, so they don't have this context). It was surprising as he has been famously reticent about talking about his brother publicly after the grotesque media circus after River's death (the 911 call he made for River the night he died was played all over the news at the time so that was sadly kind of his introduction to mainstream recognition, so his resuming of his acting career a couple of years later was in the shadow of that) , and it was very moving to see him still coping with that very painful loss nearly three decades later. That's not Method. That's not acting. That's not Joaquin Phoenix being a downer. That was a man making his big brother very proud. Please, context matters.
I don't know if this counts as method, but I love that Margot Robbie gave Ryan Gosling a gift every day of their shoot, in character from Barbie to Ken. Or Cillian Murphy diving into learning about physics for his role in Sunshine and again in Oppenheimer. That's the kind of method acting I want to hear about.
Or the same Ryan Gosling being Ken in interviews!
Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? I can't really imagine Barbie ever thinking about Ken.
It's kind of funny how people talk about Austin Butler's extreme method acting for Elvis by saying things like, "He didn't see his family for 3 years!" yet leaving out the important part about the movie getting shut down in the middle of production for the minor hiccup of a global pandemic.
For those of us who have directed others, you know every actor has their own process to get where they need to go. I don't mind the technique at all, as long as they aren't hurting themselves or others. The thing about it is, you never hear about method acting for "happy" characters. How fun would it be if people were method on a comedies?
Sean Penn was method in _Fast Times at Ridgemont High._ He insisted that people refer to him as Spicoli, changed the name on his dressing room to Spicoli, and probably got into Jeff Spicoli's mental state, too.
That's exactly what I was thinking. No one minds the Method as it applies to going all in for happy characters. Bet the same people who complain have no problems with the process when its to their benefit.
Staying in character 24/7 is just an excuse to be a jerk. If you can't turn your character on and off, it's not acting. That's why you never hear about any positive examples of it because it's just an ego trip.
Marylin Monroe was a method actress and she was never a jerk. Also, Nicole Kidman.
Viggo Mortenson in LotR also utilized some method acting, and pretty much the whole cast and crew in the bts commentaries describe him as quite the gentleman and fr-nice guy.
@@vins1979you literally didn't read the comment. It clearly says "if"
@@amyp2779 you literally did not understand my reply to your comment: Marylin Monroe was not switching in and off character. Nicole Kidman notoriously spoke with a Russian accent in and off set while shooting Nine Perfect Strangers, but that's only the latest example, because it has been reported that she's often remains in full character. Daniel Day Lewis immerse himself into the characters 24/7, but no one has ever reported of him being a jerk. And so on and so forth.
Joaquin became a real fire fighter for a role. I don’t think that’s being a jerk when it’s literally saving lives
Natalie Potrman did ballet for hours a day because she needed the muscle memory of a professional ballerina. Same thing with actors playing soldiers, martial artists, cowboys etc. You cannot just act that.
But that is physical skill, not method acting.
Exactly 👏
@@amberjulia123that’s their point ?
There’s a difference in learning a new skill so you can better depict a role and depriving yourself of food/sleep/ whatever and acting weird & obnoxious to “get into character”
Then by that logic, criminal roles in movies need to be played by actors that did crimes.
It's a case to case basis.
What they're doing isn't even method acting. Method acting just means using past experiences to aid your performance; you need to be sad? Think of something sad that happened to you. That's it, you're now a method actor. All this staying-in-character crap is just self indulgent narcissism.
Proposal: We gather the most problematic male "Method actors" together and cast them in an movie about how a group of problematic Method actors learn to set healthy boundaries between themselves and their art and be respectful toward their colleagues. Feign a big media and Oscar campaign based on how deep they go into their characters. It might just work.
next project: every person in the world act in a 'movie' about how humanity achieved world peace and lived in harmony ever after, solving climate crisis etc.. you get the point
You just pulled some badass meta prank right there! Congratulations let's get it done!!!
Method acting is like that one coworker who pushes themselves to exhaustion taking no breaks, while everyone else is taking lunch breaks and 15 min and is getting the same results. It’s just not impressive
There isn't one version of the method. If you lump it all together you are making a mistake.
Really? Can you tell me some examples?
Well, in most cases that guy is working so hard because everyone else is constantly taking breaks.
@@elijahalbiston Sure, workaholics and overachievers don't get that we work to live, we don't live to work.
One story that always stuck with me was how Jim Carey started shit with Jerry Lawler because he “felt that’s how Andy would act” but Lawler in interviews talks about how he and Kaufman were friendly and they planned the whole thing together. Like, you think you’re magically tapping into a dead man but you’re completely off track.
strange. The documentary Jim & Andy portrays people such as Koffman's brother and girlfriend as basically accepting that was Andy being channeled
Moral of the Story: Just get a therapist on retainer as soon as possible.
That's actually not a bad idea. I think the Bridgerton set would have benefited from that. Or make sure there's a support system ready
What bugs me about these countless video essays or article pieces about "method" acting is the frequent inaccuracies about what can be considered as the ridiculousness of the "Day-Lewis" method (which is the method that people & general public think of when they hear "method" acting, rather than the Stanislavski/Strasberg one). For example, Phoenix asking the dentist for prosthetic to create his clinched jaw look for The Master, I wouldn't consider that as being included in the ridiculousness of "method" acting, if anything that is just the normal routine of an actor crafting their character from the way they think their character should look like physically, i.e, no difference to an actor putting on certain makeup, certain walk, posture, speech, behaviour/ticks, etc to achieve a certain look for certain characters. That is it, it's not that big of a deal. It's not "unnecessary", that's just part of an actor's tasks, making decisions on how their character should look like. Cuz just from the look of the character alone, it can tell a little bit about their background story (subliminally).
Unnecessary here means the way Daniel Day-Lewis asks the cast & crew to call him by his character's name and speaking as his characters EVEN when there really is no reason to (like when no cameras are rolling). Or like that absurd Jim Carrey documentary, staying in character for no reason when the cameras not rolling other than to bother and terrorize the director creating bad vibes on set, and then claiming he had "no control over his actions, because it was actually Andy Kaufman's ghost that made me do it". Now that is what unnecessary means when it comes to the infamous "method", not whatever Phoenix is doing. From what I read of various articles of the behind the scenes of his many films, or even from the directors he worked with, when the cameras are not rolling, he's just simply Joaquin, the actor, an inquisitive one as well, constantly asking the director questions about his character to better understand and studying his characters. Phoenix I would say is more aligned with the original Stanislavski/Strasberg kind of method, rather than the distorted absurd/ridiculous "Day-Lewis" method that the general public came to know today.
Of course, this is not to bash Daniel Day-Lewis, cuz whatever he's doing, it seems to work magnificently for him, without creating actual bad vibes or discomfort towards his fellow co-workers. Same thing for Jeremy Strong, seems to give him great results, while not physically bothering his co-workers. See that type of "Day-Lewis" method is TOLERABLE. Is it still considered ridiculous? sure to some degree, but ultimately no harm done to others, hence tolerable. Now compare that to Jim Carey, or even Jared Leto who sent used condoms to Margot Robbie, bullets to Will Smith and dead animals to his fellow cast members of Suicide Squad, then yes, that is absolutely INTOLERABLE & RIDICULOUS alright, and well deserved to be condemned and roll our eyes to. Leto & Carrey's "method" is the issue here, and should be frowned upon regardless of whether it's a man, woman, white, or non-white that does it.
A nuanced argument. Yes👍
It can be a good choice when applied right. Ie: Meryl knew her status as an actor would be akin to her character’s in “The Devil Wears Prada” so she was intentionally very distant with fellow actors and it served to create an atmosphere when she was in the room.
Also, if I were in a film and doing a dialect, I would stay in that voice 24/7. It needs to sound lived-in.
While David Suchet was portraying Hercule Poirot for the BBC series back in the day, he'd stay in Poirot's Belgian accent all day during shooting. He even did an on-set interview speaking in the accent because "I can't turn it on and off."
It's music theatre but a lot pf the acting teachers at music theatre courses at Uni borderline ban you from method acting
Their reasoning is that last thing we need is to have a bunch if actors open up old worlds or past traumas for work when you can just learn the technique to be a good actor safely
Robert Pattinson said in an interview with Variety in 2019 that actors only go Method when they play a-holes (paraphrasing)
He said most times, because there actors who have done good like Jake g or Joaquin who because a firefighter and officer for a week or two
How come it's never extremely kind and thoughtful characters that actors seem to method act as? It does raise a question (and this isn't totally my opinion) but how good of an actor are you if you have to "experience" the entirety of your character? Research is one thing, accent and dialect practice is another but to me it's more impressive if you can just slip in and out of character without "totally becoming" the character
We also need to look at actors who used the method WITHOUT hurting themselves or others. It is possible, and they are successful because understand their own boundaries before going into it
I don't care how Jeremy Strong prepared to be Kendall Roy every week. It must have been exhausting but he created a fascinating and sympathetic character without a single knowing smirk to the audience.
That performance will be studied for decades.
👏👏👏👏
And he didn't mistreat his co/stars in any way, the worst thing some of them have said is that he puts himself through much and they worried for him.
Exactly. Some of this was just overblown click bait.
Though I do agree Jared Leto is somewhat dangerous.@@FrakkinToasterLuvva
I'm sure Jeremy Strong appreciates that Brian Cox publicly criticises his methods. If you're really concerned just talk face to face.
You mean Jeremy Strong
"Man, I don't drop character 'till I done the DVD commentary." - method acting extraordinaire Kirk Lazarus
I blame Jared Lato for ruining it. I would HATE receiving rat or spend more shooting time in the set just because my co-actor can’t behave like a normal person.
Actors/Actresses gaining or losing weight or wearing prosthetics for a role is NOT Method Acting. It's called gaining or losing weight and wearing prosthetics.
Learning to drive a taxi, work on a farm, or master the piano is NOT Method Acting. It's research and prep work.
Actors often remain in character while on set because the average 2-3 minute scene takes multiple hours and many different camera angles to shoot. The actor must sustain the same consistent intensity level over a period of 7.5 hours, and for as many takes that are needed; otherwise the scene is a garbled mess of continuity errors when pieced together in the editing room. So it makes better sense for actors to stay in character while on set in order to maintain focus.
Women use method acting in film just as much as men do. Think of how often an actress is required to break down in tears or simulate giving birth in a film. These scenes take ALL DAY to shoot. Women use the same techniques men do to maintain a consistent energy level for filming multiple takes.
Bad behavior is not the fault of Method Acting; it's the fault of bad behavior.. The reason why more men are called out on it is because men are more often cast to play violent roles. . ..
I honestly think you can work however you want, as long as you aren't making the jobefor everyone else harder. Be it cast members or Crew they are all important for the film and if you want to stay in you role, do as you pleased as long as you do not inconvinience everyone else.
Now Method Acting is just used as a carte blanche for Hollywood to explain away or minimize the crappy behavior of actors. So many actors are all, "Oh, I'm just really method with my process" to get away with cruelty. Like when was the last time you heard of an actor who was doing super amazing stuff for people around them and on set saying "Oh, I'm just really method with my process"? How does the level of disrespect to your fellow cast and crew help make a great collaborative project?
As a Theatre teacher this is the first time i see a video where they address the origin of what americans call "The Method". It's not only not the only method to exist, it's not even the better for its purpose. It's just the one the actors studio and Hollywood found more useful for the moneyprinting machine. Even Stanislavsky himself moved on from this first stage of his research into what's known as the method of the physical actions, which was followed by masters like Grotowski and Peter Brook. Industrialization of art attempts against art itself.
"Method" acting has to be one of the most unbelievably obnoxious things an actor can do. And let's be real. Celebs are already pretty obnoxious.
It all comes down to the centuries long tradition of romanticizing bad tempers and shitiness as part of artistic genius. For centuries we've not only ignored, but praised the shitty behaviors of mostly male artists in all mediums, we've called them passionate when they were abusive, we've called them focused when they were obsessed. When they were rude and disdainful we said they just cared too much about their work. When they abandoned family and people dependent on them we mockingly said that they didn't want anything to distract them from their work. When they engaged in dangerous and downright criminal behavior, we shrugged it off saying they were simply complex souls and minds, not made for the mediocre laws of the little common man. We said that they saw and felt the world in a more profound and elevated state of mind that we mortals were unable to grasp or comprehend. If there is something I like about contemporary life, is that we're less eager to excuse unethical behavior in the name of "artistic genius". Genius and commitment to an artistic endeavor shouldn't be a pass for unethical and downright shitty behavior, let alone abuse of power.
To quote Lawrence Olivier. “ Dear boy, just ACT!”
When he played the Joker Ledger didn't do that method bullshit of harassing people on set.
Thing is method acting can often be a shitty excuse for being an asshole, Jared Leto or Joaquin Phoenix famously, but there’s also plenty of actors who do go very far in method acting, but never treat others like shit for it, Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, even smaller stuff like Anthony Hopkins never talking to Jodie Foster, the way that a lot of actors playing villains might distance themselves from their co-stars, its not rude or hostile and it genuinely is fine becuz they’re professional. What Jared Leto does, beyond being a fucking awful asshole actor, is not even of any use to his performance, sending dead rats to your co-stars is not gonna make u seem more realistic as Joker in ur upcoming scene
Jeremy Strong is simply a genius. When he is in character, his gaze, facial expression and even voice are changing. Such actors appear only once in a hundred years.
You cannot compare Austin Butler talking in Elvis voice to whatever Jeret Letto did. Actors who don't know their boundaries are just assholes
I gotta admit, it would probably be annoying if a guy whose real name is X asks you to call him Y during the entire production of a movie about Y. 😂
I think it is an extreme, the idea of fiction is to 'act', and perfect accuracy goes against that.
My thought exactly. If you have to be the person and live the life to embody the character, then maybe you aren’t a good actor
"My dear boy, why don't you try acting? It's safer." (Sir Laurence Olivier)
My undergrad is in Theatre, I graduated in ‘93 our main acting teacher referred to method acting as “deliberately induced mental illness” and thought it was super unhealthy.
This reminds me of the way directors can sometimes go ‘method’ where they don’t even allow their actors to actually act but torture them into giving real fearful reactions. Like Friedkin on The Exorcist set where he felt he had to slap, shoot guns off, or literally physically hurt his stars to get the reactions he wanted, to the extent that Sydow at one point got genuinely upset because he felt like the director didn’t even let his actors act. Similar with the way Kubrick genuinely just treated Shelley Duvall like shit, yes it gives you the an amazing performance but seriously why not let the actors act rather than living that fear.
The kind of performance that Jeremy Strong gave was ethereal, everyone has their own techniques.
True method acting usually isn't a big problem (unless its negatively affecting their health, in which case they probably shouldn't do that), but the guys who use method acting as an excuse to be disgusting people in public are not ok ever. and as was pointed out in this video, it is usually male actors doing it, and its usually something they claim when they do absolutely abhorrent things, usually towards female coworkers. 'its just method acting wahh you can't be mad at me waahhh.' Its the 'learn to take a joke' skeevy excuse of actors. Robert DiNero doing taxi driver work is a great thing, but Jared Leto sending dead animals to his coworkers is disgusting and he should've been fired for that. That was harassment, no matter what he calls it.
Has anyone told these actors that they're not curing cancer, solving the crimate crisis or creating world peace? Like its just acting in a movie, it's not that deep babes
Not disrespecting the medium, I love movies, I just think they need a bit of perspective
They get payed like gods doing miracles..... so its just naturally that they often getting aloof.
As someone from a performing arts high school, I love method acting 🤷🏽♀️
I don't have a problem if the the performance turns out to be epic level pf greatness that Jeremy strong put on succession
Austin Butler permanently damaged his vocal cords by going method. It is why he still sounds like Elvis, and will always sound like that. Method acting is mentally and physically dangerous and should not be encouraged. Yet, the Academy keeps awarding this toxic tool.
There has been theories on acting and what it means since at least the 18th century; French essayist Diderot called it "the paradox of the actor". You are not acting if you experience the emotions of the character. Method acting is not popular in France, and yet many actors give amazing and subtle performances.
You don't need to damage both your mental and physical health to give a good performance. In any other field, that would be considered dehumanizing and the beginning of major burnout. In any other form of art, it would be considered extreme performance art, only without the magic of the silverscreen to protect you from the implications.
Somewhat of a sidenote but I think one of the reasons Jeremy as Kendall is so fantastic is because the choices he makes AS Jeremy FOR Kendall are the same choices Kendall would make if he were an actor, not a billionaire eldest boy. "He often isolated himself from the cast, which is exactly what Kendall would do."
Trying to jump into the river is stupid and over the top though, and that's a point where he could have actually put himself or others in danger, which is imo when 'do it for the art' has gone too far.
Method acting is an excuse for actors to be a$$holes on set, like Robert Pattinson said “no one method acts to be a kind person”
On the set of Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey claimed Jared Leto stole from him while playing Rayon
On Suicide Squad Leto sent Margot Robbie a rat, delivered a dead pig on set, sent other cast members anal beads, condoms and bullets claiming Joker doesn’t respect other people’s boundaries. He even sent Jimmy Fallon a snake during an interview. All these acts were disrespectful to his cast members and disgusting to animals
On the Morbius set, the director and cast complained that Leto remained in character as a disabled Morbius as he struggled for 45 minutes to go to the restroom, he took up so much time that the cast had to stop what they were doing to assist him to the restroom. Playing a disabled character is one thing, but mocking a disabled person is another especially when you are someone like Jared Leto climbing mountains and the Eiffel Tower.
The problem is Hollywood rewards method acting, actors like Jared Leto who are notorious for creating toxic work environments thru method acting remain employed and rewarded
Will Smith used the role he played as King Richard to slap Chris Rock at the Oscars
Unfortunately method acting creates a Jekyll and Hyde effect, where the actor cannot dissociate himself from the character he is playing
Stanislavsky is said to the the founder of Method acting. His student was Strasberg. Strasberg came to America and bastardized “affective memory acting” into what America knows as “method acting.” When Stanislavsky saw what was going on, he wasn’t happy. So yes, he did turn his back in it later in life, but there was more to it. Now we do better and will continue to do better, but method acting truly can destroy an actor. I have seen it and gone through it. It’s not good for ur mental health. Plus; in my small world of theatre and acting, the ones that do this are bizarre and very difficult to work with.
Well no, because Strasberg's technique is fundamentally different from Stanivlavsky's and there's zero reason to think that Stanislavsky decided "yes, the old way of reciting lines in a theatrical manner is better than getting into the character to give a more emotionally realistic performance because I didn't like this American guy".
Strasberg thought actors should use their own experiences to inform the performance, which Stanivlasvky did not.
Which probably explains why e.g. Jeremy Strong insists he is NOT a method actor, because he's made it clear he does not use his own experiences when acting, he is trying to feel the character's.
When you start abusing co workers YOU HAVE GONE TO FAR. it’s not the people around you who are the problem.
This is the first time I've heard someone refer to Suicide Squad (2016) as a successful movie......
It was financially, one of the few DCEU films that made any money.
@@DianeCooperTW True
It earned more than 800 million usd
Did anyone else notice the subtitles (auto-generated no doubt) on the clip of Austin Butler turned him saying “pieces of my DNA will always be linked in that way” into “LinkedIn that way”?
I don't know that Natalie Portman's doing ballet training was so much method acting as it was just being able to know how to do something physical so that it's believable on camera. If she's going to just go on film and not know how to actually move like a ballerina and do the steps when she's playing a ballerina then it would probably look bad.
I still think that this stuff was more a publicity-stunt to get her the Oscar in 2011. Of course she trained to do the movements. But 90% of all real dancing-scenes in that movie are visibily done by the stuntdouble Sarah Lane. They created this "Look how Portman immersed herself in that role"-drama to sell tickets, fool the crowd and win the Oscar...and all of it worked. If you want a movie where the actor goes full physical, look at Black Swans predecessor "The Wrestler". Mickey Rouke really did most of the stunts himself. Portman obviously did not.
austin butler is still doing the elvis voice on purpose
Austin Butler’s vocal coach mentioned, his vocal cords have been permanently damaged. That is what method acting did, and why it is such a dangerous form of acting. Butler will never not sound like Elvis now. The damage was done and is irreversible.
On purpose? Please he always had a deep voice
Lady Gaga boasting going so called method for horrendous performance in 'House of Gucci' is funny af.
Did she even practice anything for that role 😂😂😂😂😂
Lol nothing@@Jsarmy87124
Hot take: I did not like Austin Butler as Elvis.. it just felt like over the top imitation! 😬😅
Staying in character all day is bad because what if you end up having your best performances in the parking lot
Here's my thing with it, if the person partaking in it doesn't harm or just be a dick to their co-stars, it's fine. Let them do their process
Joaquin isn’t a method actor. And if he was there’s still nothing wrong with it. Losing weight and preparing for a role isn’t method. He has said it himself
Joaquin is a serious method actor, all this backlash against method acting is bullshit, Leto was an idiot but no everyone who does method is an idiot
@@norm-bb3bb Joaquin only done method a couple times early on, but I agree that Leto ruined it
It’s a slippery slope I think. It can be helpful but it can also go too far.
another topic for you to talk about, if you havent already, is directors being obsessive and abusive during production. i think of the director of the exorcist who would yell, fire, and get physically abusive to the actors to get the 'proper performance' for the film.
Stanley Kubrick comes to mind.
When I did theatre (two decades ago) I preferred David Mamet's True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor
And I still see Robert Mitchum as one of Hollywoods greatest actors. Because that man never acted, he just was there and made it! And to quote Charles Laughton, who directed King Lear on stage with him: "Mitchum was the best King Lear ever!"
I think it's only a problem if others feel like they have to do it. Otherwise let people do what works for them!
What Phoenix's oscar speech has to do with method acting?
Whennit comes to method acting, don't follow Jared Leto. Follow Daniel Day Lewis and, above all, don't use it as an excuse to be a dick.
What is the difference between those 2?
@@vg4life Daniel Day Lewis does it right, such as learning the skills needed to take on his roles. Jared Leto uses it as an excuse to be an asshole.
Leto better be glad he didn't get jump. I'll be damn if I go to work and get terrorized.
What makes a method actor great is to get immersed into character to achieve a good performance, e.g.; Todd Phillips said Joaquin Phoenix lost his composture, while staying in character on the set of Joker. Actually, Robert De Niro and him didn't get along as Phoenix didn't like rehearsing before acting, so he made everything more difficult and chaotic. Moreover, everybody talks about his Joker's role, but people tend to forget about his performances in Napoleon & The Master, which are quite underrated.
Brian Cox has it right as far as method acting goes.
If this is method acting, it isn't what a professional actor does.
In theatre if you're off stage you are yourself, when you're on stage you're someone else. Thats it, that's acting.
Acting is also about building a trusting relationship between others. For example: If you forget your lines you can trust a co actor to lead you into a prompt. Trust is broken when you can't be your normal self off stage.
If an actor can cry on demand they're worth their salt. I can't do that yet. However I can fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, and be calm when exiting the stage.
If acting is a job then treat is as such. It's not for a significant other and family to deal with.
Leave your shoes at the front door.
A good actor should be able to ACT. If you get schizophrenic about it, than that's something different, but it's not ACTING.
Let actors do whatever works for them. Stop policing for no reason. If an actor fucks up and acts offensively, there's other ways to deal with that. Not to "blame it" on method acting.
Literallyy
Please explain. How would you deal with that?
@@hal90001 It's simple. Authorities if it's too grave. internally if it isn't. Blaming a way of acting is just atupid.
Actors can do whatever they want for method acting but being horrible to other cast members or crew is where the backlash started.
@@Beanhill_94 and? I said exactly that. It's not a result of method acting. It's a result of actors exaggerating.
I support method acting to a degree but not as far as many are taking it. And I don't agree with taking your own emotions and experiences and applying those. If you're truly diving fully into the character, that means that you're diving fully into the character, not into yourself.
Regardless, whatever acting method that's adopted shouldn't be harming others.
And, of course, women should be allowed to do what male actors are allowed to do.
Method acting is okay if i like it ( jeremy strong’s kendall roy exclusively)
It wasn't on account of methods, Napoleon was just bad; bereft of any charm, or charisma, or authority, or nuance. This man was the greatest general since Alexander, can we have some dignity for the character? Napoleon's brief cameo in The Count of Monte Cristo is better than that entire movie.
The fact that Joaquin in Napoleon is in the thumbnail (and the first example mentioned in the video) is hilarious. Not only did he not go method, part of why the film is being received poorly is for reasons that boil down to Joaquin going *against* aspects of the method (one of many examples within this: as opposed to trying to find a voice that would be historically accurate to the person, and therefore the most truthful, as one would in a method influenced process, his choice to eschew any ‘voice’ for his characterization of Napoleon and essentially speak in a version of his own natural cadence and accent). *also, Joaquin attempting to talk social politics/ the environment / animal activism in the Oscar speech, while I understand not agreeing or wanting someone of his occupation using that platform to speak to those things… the fact that this is equated to his being ‘Method’ is the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a video. The two have nothing to do with one another, and conflating the method with a need to speak to your own beliefs is absurd. I’ll never watch a video from the take again. Not because I disagree but because the amount of willful ignorance and or sheer stupidity in this video is egregious.
They think he’s method because of how damn good he is 😂 he himself has said he hasn’t done method in a very long time
Maybe he wasn't method in Napoleon but he definitely did method in Joker
@@norm-bb3bb he only lost weight for joker, he was Joaquin on set for the most part 🤷🏼♂️
This channel is mostly garbage.
Agree. Method IS pretentious and unnecessary. Like what's the % of award winner do method? Like Brian Cox said, "JUST BLOODY PRETEND!"
And that's why Jeremy Strong is a much better actor than Brian Cox.
@@FrakkinToasterLuvva well, you're entitled to your favorite person. and personally, i don't believe you need to personally pull your teeth and mutilate yourself to put a command performance.
@@BaldAndCurious I wouldn't. And neither did Jeremy Strong.
Mind you, the funniest thing about you bringing up Brian Cox and pretending is that he's the one who can't separate himself from Logan Roy in his interviews and keeps defending him and talking from his POV. It's very funny. Maybe he did do some method acting without realizing it, LOL
Meanwhile Jeremy Strong gives very thoughtful and unbiased analysis of his character and other characters in his interviews.
@@FrakkinToasterLuvva yeah, I don't have all the chips here apparently. I'll re-look up those interviews
2:57 I'm sure there will be pieces of my DNA that will always be 😂😂😂LinkedIn 😂😂😂 that way
11:16 Natalie Portman never did Method Acting according to her own statements. She is analysing the role but not doing method acting.
I think trauma is central to all of the problems with The Method. IMO the technique itself is sound, but I think it can just traumatize actors while they research, or trigger them when it brings back memories that had been suppressed.
The Method isn't good; it isn't bad. It is one of many tools in an actor's toolbelt, and it must be used responsibly, like any other tool. Some actors prefer it over other tools. Others, like me, only use it when we absolutely have to, because effective though it is, it can be very bad for you both mentally and physically.
It's time to abandon the Method and embrace Nicolas Cage's patented technique of Neo-Shamanism!
anthony hopkins NEVER goes method. he is one of the best out there.
I think method acting can be good to deliver an outstanding performance, however the means of doing it opens up the excuse for abuse and the method acting itself a scapegoat for toxic behaviour. Actors who utilize the method can give themselves full creative viability and control, and if it means to degrade others to keep up the performance then that's just a casualty of the loyalty to the method. What needs to be done is regulation to what would be considered acceptable to an extent and that all actors have to agree to it and regulate their performance, otherwise they should be "fined" a certain amount or percentage if the use of method acting is proven true to causing distress emotionally, mentally, physically, and especially financially to others in the workplace.
To me, method acting seems more fake and melodramatic. It reminds me of all of those over-acted movies of the 1950s. Give me back Cary Grant.
Method Acting works and is a good technique. It’s the actors that sometimes misinterpret the actual technique. Daniel Day Lewis is by far the best method actor. Jared Leto is probably the worst. It’s all about how far the actor takes it.
This cannot be healthy, for the actors and their families. Can you imagine how confusing and scary it must be for their kids to have their parents be different person all together?
Phoenix is an amazing actor to watch, but his “method” I think is just being able and willing to air his deep seated mental health issues to craft a character. I believe he has some personality disorders that help his craft.
I thought Mickey Rourke, who won the Golden Globe, should have won the Oscar for best actor but he lost to Sean Penn in 2009. I think Rourke tapped into his own feelings in a role that suited him. Whereas Penn became a character nothing like himself. Yet I found Rourke’s performance more emotionally gripping and compelling.
Jared leto is a huge pb 🙄method acting is not an excuse
Is there such a thing as method writing . As writing a character
No, because it is assumed that a writer has to get into the head of their character.
But actors often used to just recite their lines in theatrical way, which is why Stanislavski came up with the technique of truly getting into a character to give a more realistic performance.
Robert de Niro comes across as an a-hole in most of his movies because he's actually an a-hole. No acting is required. He's just a typecast a-hole.
Really? Honestly I never heard much about that. As far as I know he used acting to learn to go out of himself. Perhaps he had problems with locked-in-syndrom or anxiety or something like that.
A lot of what is currently referred to as The Method is more of a bastardization of it. I'm not a huge fan of Method acting, but many of the latest examples are more about actors basically being self-indulgent a**holes in order to feed their own egos. Or to cover up their insecurities.
Sally Field is a self-proclaimed Method actor, but we dont hear a lot of stories about her abusing cast and crew, or making life difficult on set. Just the opposite.
Doesn't it also depend on the TYPE of character the method actor is playing, in terms of his/her effect on coworkers? I imagine if Jason Sedakis decided to "method act" to get into the character of Ted Lasso, he would have behaved by giving out sound advice, thoughtful gifts, and just adding joy and positivity on the set of the show. It's only when the method actor is playing a "bad" character, that the behavior becomes a problem.
You know who I am. I'm the dude playing the dude disguise as another dude. RDJ as the best.
Robert pattison said it best: actors are only method when they are olaying an as******