8 Actors Who Have Taken Method Acting To The Extreme
Method acting can be a great way for an actor to fully embrace and embody a character, especially when playing a real-life icon. And while method acting can prove successful for a film, it can often be detrimental to the health of the actor. From losing and gaining massive amounts of weight, taking part in strange activities and diets, and seemingly going completely bonkers for a part, here are eight actors who have taken method acting too far.
8 Jared Leto
One of the most famous examples of obsessive method acting comes in the form of actor Jared Leto. His commitment to his roles goes as far back as his performance in the 2000 film Requiem for a Dream, where he lived on the streets, lost a bunch of weight, and starved himself from basic human necessities. He's bounced back and forth between gaining and losing weight for projects like Chapter 27 and Dallas Buyer's Club, but the lengths of his extreme method acting are found behind the camera with a tendency to not break character.
This behavior was most evident with his portrayal of the Joker in 2016's Suicide Squad, where he'd isolate himself, send strange gifts like used condoms and rats to his co-stars, and maintain the villain's persona.
7 Shia LaBeouf
Another actor known for their bizarre antics in Hollywood, it comes as no surprise LaBeouf will devote himself to the characters he plays in extreme fashion. While he doesn't identify as a method actor, claiming he's more of an "immersive actor," he's taken a few drastic measures in embodying his roles. One of the most publicized was with the film Fury, where he stopped bathing most of the time, asked a dentist to remove a tooth, and gave himself a facial scar. Another came with the film The Tax Collector, where he had most of his chest inked in tattoos for his character Creeper.
6 Daniel Day-Lewis
One of the most famous actors in Hollywood known for their indulgence in the art of method acting, at least Daniel Day-Lewis's extreme efforts have paid off with some incredible award-winning performances. When the least concerning measures he's taken are learning whole new languages and losing great amounts of weight, there's something to be said about what he will do just for a role.
For the film, In the Name of the Father, he not only lost around fifty pounds, but he stayed in solitary confinement for three days without water and then had cold water thrown on him by the crew over and over again. For The Last of the Mohicans, he spent a month in the woods, learning to hunt, skin animals, and fight. In the film My Left Foot, he played a man with cerebral palsy, which he pretended he had off-screen in where the crew would feed him, carry him around, and wheel him to public venues.
If these instances didn't seem extreme, he also nearly died after catching pneumonia on the set of Gangs of New York when he refused to wear anything but appropriate attire for the era and wouldn't take any modern medicine.
5 Jamie Foxx
While he hasn't gone as far as some actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, he's partaken in some serious method acting - mostly in portraying real-life figures. For the Ray Charles biopic Ray, he not only lost thirty pounds, but he had his eyelids glued down and allowed for prosthetic eyelids. He wanted to fully embody the blind artist, but it led him to break down and suffer from panic attacks.
For his role as a musician who suffers from mental illness in The Soloist, Foxx talked to a psychiatrist and often suffered even more panic attacks because he left like he was becoming his character and adopting his mental troubles - which were often soothed through music, similar to his character.
4 Christian Bale
Perhaps the number one actor associated with extreme method acting, aside from Tom Hanks who is also known for his dedication to weight changes, Bale will undergo anything for a part, often pushing his body past the breaking point over and over again. Yet, he claims he isn't a true method actor, as he's never studied the process. His weight has gone from one extreme to another, often starving or gorging himself for a role.
For the film The Machinist, he lost sixty pounds and weighed a total of one hundred and twenty pounds, before six months later having to gain and put on one hundred pounds of muscle for his portrayal of the caped crusader in Batman Begins. He will gain or lose weight rather than deal with extensive prosthetics, molding his body to any character he needs it to be.
3 Billy Bob Thornton
Another actor that opposes the idea of method acting, though he's engaged with the practice, is Billy Bob Thornton. While he doesn't often force his body to undergo massive fluctuations in weight or take on the mentality of his characters to a detriment of his own health, he took things to the extreme with his role in the 1996 movie Sling Blade.
Many outlets claim the actor put crushed glass in both of his shoes during filming, so he could simulate the limp and the facial expressions of his mentally disabled protagonist.
2 Nicolas Cage
Few actors come up with a new type of acting, but Cage takes much of the techniques of method acting and describes a blend of acting styles he uses as "Nouveau Shamanic". He claims the method's purpose is to augment your reality and that actors are the modern day's shamans, leading to some truly paramount displays.
In Vampire's Kiss he ate live cockroaches and had hot yogurt poured over his feet, just to name a few instances of how far he would go at the beginning of his method acting career. One of his most extravagant displays, however, came in the film Birdy, where he wanted to accurately portray a Vietnam soldier by having his teeth pulled out without any anesthesia and leading to him wrapping his face throughout the shoot (causing him to experience ingrown hairs and large acne). These are just a few examples of this strange actor's overt dedication to cinema.
1 Jack Nicholson
With claims that he knows the technique of method acting and practices it more than any other actor, Nicholson practiced the craft differently during his career than his fellow extremists. He didn't always completely give himself over to a role, but he used many ideas from method acting to get into a character.
For The Shining, he was shown behind the scenes running around and chanting "axe, murder, kill", to amp himself up to play the crazed writer. And in other projects, he often indulged in narcotics to not only delve more into his roles but to his own enjoyment, which was famously identified in the film Easy Rider. Unlike many of his fellow actors, he knew when to turn off the character and return to his own persona. However, that doesn't mean he didn't honor the craft of method acting and go full throttle for some of his characters either.
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