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Hathaway reportedly ate nothing but dried oatmeal paste for two weeks to lose 25 lbs (11 kg) for her role in 'Les Misérables.' In addition, she cut off all her hair—something both the director and hair and makeup artist apparently advised her against—to attempt to understand the pain of a mother willing to do anything to keep her child alive. It seemed to work, since she took home the Best Supporting Actress award.
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For his character in 'Dallas Buyers Club,' Leto dropped 40 lbs (18 kg) and dressed in drag both on and off set. He similarly lost weight for his role in 'Requiem For a Dream,' though for that film he also abstained from intimacy and hung out with junkies in New York so that he could learn more about addiction.
As part of Leto's method for 'The S u i c i d e Squad,' the actor sent his costars twisted presents including a live rat, bullets, and a dead hog, along with some heartfelt notes.
Bale is very well-known for his dramatic transformations for roles, but none was ever as crazy as dropping a dangerous 60 lbs (27 kg) for 'The Machinist,' his weight falling to 121 lbs (55 kg), only to bring it back up to 190 lbs (86 kg) a few months later for 'Batman Begins.'
Dustin Hoffman is rumored to be tough to work with because he is always in character on the set. He even went as far as to deprive himself of sleep to get into the head of his character in 'Marathon Man.'
Will Smith is not the first person you think of when it comes to method acting, but he did try it out in 1993 while filming 'Six Degrees of Separation.' In his memoir, Smith revealed that the experiment was quite dangerous for him and his marriage to his first wife, Sheree Zampino. One extract read, "Sheree and I were in the first few months of our marriage with a brand-new baby and for Sheree, I can imagine that this experience was unsettling to say the least. She'd married a guy named Will Smith and now she was living with a guy named Paul Poitier [his character's name in the movie]. And to make matters worse, during shooting I fell in love with Stockard Channing." Channing was his co-star in 'Six Degrees of Separation,' and his sudden feelings for her made him realize that method acting wasn't something he wanted to try again.
Cage is known for using his exotic pets as inspiration for his acting, but when preparing to play a Vietnam veteran in 'Birdy,' he had a few teeth pulled without anesthesia and spent five weeks with his face wrapped in bandages.
To prepare for his role as the famous painter Jackson Pollock, Harris built a painting studio at his home and studied how to paint in the same way.
Lady Gaga has always been an extreme performer in music, and the same goes for her acting. Her starring role in the 2021 movie 'House of Gucci' required her to take on an Italian accent, which she maintained throughout the entire production, both on and off camera. "For this, I was always Patrizia," she told a reporter. "I brought the darkness with me home because her life was dark." In a roundtable conversation with other A-list actresses like Penélope Cruz and Kristen Stewart, Gaga admitted that her process was extremely unhealthy. She says that she was "completely detached from real life." She also described herself as masochistic in her use of her own trauma to summon the rage and pain felt by Patrizia in certain scenes. "I kind of get off on that chaos for myself—reliving things that hurt me and bringing them back. It feels like I get to take something that was so painful and turn it into something meaningful. And yet I was such a f—king wreck after that scene. It did take me down." Gaga even had a psychiatric nurse on hand towards the end of filming.
Speaking on the 'W T F with Marc Maron' podcast, Andrew Garfield, said, “There [have] been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think. People are still acting in that way, and it’s not about being an a—hole to everyone on set. It’s actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances, and being really nice to the crew simultaneously, and being a normal human being, and being able to drop it when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it.”
“I’m kind of bothered by the misconception," Garfield continued, as reported by Variety. "No, I don’t think you know what method acting is if you’re calling it bulls—t, or you just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor who isn’t actually acting the method at all,” he added, explaining that it's a very internal and private process that is often misrepresented by people who act out on set with the excuse of going method. As for his own experience with method acting, Garfield explained that for the 2016 film 'Silence,' in which he played a Jesuit priest in the 17th century, he spent a year studying under Jesuit writer Father James Martin, and for six months he fasted and went celibate. “It was very cool, man,” the actor said. “I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of intimacy and food at that time.”
Austin Butler took on the role of Elvis in Baz Luhrmann's eponymous biopic in 2022, and fans have noted that he still speaks with the King's deep Southern drawl. Social media blew up on the topic during his acceptance speech for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. Publications like Today questioned if Butler will ever stop talking like Elvis, while, the New York Post came up with the headline, "Butler’s ‘cringe’ fake voice at the 2023 Golden Globes called out.”
When asked about it on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, Butler said he doesn't think he sounds like Elvis anymore. “I don’t think I sound like him still, but I guess I must because I hear it a lot.” He continued to explain, “I had three years where [Elvis] was my only focus in life, so I’m sure there’s just pieces of my DNA that will always be linked in that way.” Butler previously told Variety that he didn't see his family for three years while he was preparing for the role with Baz Luhrmann, and that he spent months only speaking in Elvis's voice.
'Succession' star Brian Cox is not a fan of method acting, and he's not afraid to criticize his co-star Jeremy Strong's method. The pair play Logan and Kendall Roy, respectively, portraying one of the most toxic father-son relationships TV has ever seen, and their relationship off-screen seems to carry a bit of that same energy. “He’s a very good actor,” Cox told Town & Country. “And the rest of the ensemble is all okay with this. But knowing a character and what the character does is only part of the skill set.” Of Strong always being in character, Cox said, “It’s annoying. Don’t get me going on it.” Strong previously spoke about his method in a 2021 interview with the New Yorker, where Cox first made a little slight regarding the ability to convey character, commenting, “It’s just there and is accessible. It’s not a big religious experience." Strong later said in an interview with British GQ, “Everyone’s entitled to have their feelings. I also think Brian Cox, for example, he’s earned the right to say whatever the he wants." He continued, "There was no need to address that or do damage control.” Strong added that he felt their on-screen family was very much like a family off-screen in the sense that "you don’t always like the people that you love. I do always respect them.”
Willem Dafoe is an eccentric character who is known for his extreme and deeply expressive performances. He's currently working on two different movies with Emma Stone, both directed by the brilliant Yorgos Lanthimos (director of 2018 Oscar-winner 'The Favourite'). One of the projects is titled "And," and very few details about the storyline have been released. What we do know, however, is that there's a scene where Emma Stone's character slaps Willem Dafoe's character, although Dafoe is off camera and can't be seen. Even though Stone could easily have pretended to slap Dafoe, he insisted on being present for the scene and standing in front of her to receive the slaps! Stone says that she slapped Dafoe 20 times simply because he wanted it to be more authentic.
To prepare for 'Last of The Mohicans,' the famed method actor reportedly spent six months living in the wild, only eating animals he killed and skinned himself. For 'The Crucible,' Day-Lewis apparently lived on set, which was a replica of a colonial village with no electricity or running water. It's rumored he also built his own 17th-century house, using only the tools America's settlers would have had.
For 'Walk the Line,' Phoenix took months to learn how to sing and play the guitar, and he asked the entire set to call him JR, Johnny Cash's real name. Phoenix also famously confused everyone with his mockumentary persona from 'I'm Still Here,' appearing disheveled and confused during interviews and successfully convincing people that he was losing his mind.
The method-acting approach traces its origins to the early 20th-century teachings of the Russian theatrical realist Konstantin Stanislavski, whose work influenced Lee Strasberg to father the concept as we know it today in Hollywood sometime around the '50s. The technique requires actors to draw on their own genuine experiences and emotions, often times replicating external conditions of their characters, in order to perform with a higher degree of authenticity.
From visiting real crack dens to joining the US National Guard, check out this gallery to see which actors fully embraced the concept of method acting—some even going a little too far.
Stars who took method acting to extremes
These actors committed fully to their characters
MOVIES Actors
The method-acting approach traces its origins to the early 20th-century teachings of the Russian theatrical realist Konstantin Stanislavski, whose work influenced Lee Strasberg to father the concept as we know it today in Hollywood sometime around the '50s. The technique requires actors to draw on their own genuine experiences and emotions, often times replicating external conditions of their characters, in order to perform with a higher degree of authenticity.
From visiting real crack dens to joining the US National Guard, check out this gallery to see which actors fully embraced the concept of method acting—some even going a little too far.