Subscribe

News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle

Opinion
Lady Gaga, be warned .
method acting may bag you
an Oscar, but where does it
end?
Rebecca Root

Jeremy Strong and Lady Gaga are the latest

actors to try the time<honoured technique. As an
actor, I’ve seen its strange effects
Mon 15 Nov 2021 08.00 GMT

9 months old

There’s an old showbiz anecdote that sums

up the differences between two distinct
acting techniques, which I will call simply
“method” and “not method”.

In 1976, on the set of the spy thriller

Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier and Dustin
Hoffman, the film’s two stars, are
apparently not getting along. Hoffman
hasn’t slept for 72 hours in order to bring
verisimilitude to his portrayal of a man
being interrogated under sleep deprivation.
Seeing his colleague turn up ragged before
the cameras roll, Olivier drily remarks: “My
dear boy, why don’t you just try acting?”

Advertisement

There was an ocean between these method

and not-method actors. Olivier, steeped in
the worlds of the theatre and Shakespeare
and classical poise; and Hoffman, no less a
craftsman, but with his training grounded
in realism and the “method”, as
propounded by his teachers at the Actors
Studio in New York.

Lady Gaga, whose new film House of Gucci

opens in the UK next week, appears to be
from the Hoffman school. She recently
revealed that playing Patrizia Reggiani, the
Italian socialite convicted of hiring a hitman
to assassinate her ex-husband, Maurizio
Gucci, was a process of “becoming” rather
than an “imitation”. She told Vogue that she
stayed in character for 18 months, speaking
with an accent for nine months of that. “Off
camera,” she said. “I never broke. I stayed
with her.”

Jeremy Strong, too, has talked about the

extreme toll that playing Kendall Roy has
had on him in Succession. He says acting is
“not just an imaginary experience” but
“you go through something and […] it costs
you”. His co-star Brian Cox has said it is
torturous to watch. “Sometimes you say:
‘Jeremy, for [expletive] sake. Stop it now.’”

Advertisement

The difference between these two

approaches – the Hoffman and the Olivier –
lies in what goes into a performance to
make it believable. Olivier would work from
the outside in, using external influences to
simulate emotion (he once supposedly said,
“I just turn upstage and pull a nose hair
out” when asked how to cry on stage).
Method actors work from the inside out in a
relentless search for the “truth” of the
character, learning everything they can
about them and attempting to embody that
information with every fibre. The practice
of “staying in character”, during rehearsals,
between takes and on and off set brings,
they feel, authenticity to the performance –
but it can be extreme.

Film and television history is filled with

stories of actors taking the method to
extremes: Sylvester Stallone ending up in
intensive care for eight days after wanting
to be knocked unconscious by a co-star in
Rocky IV. Nicolas Cage spending five whole
weeks with his face covered in bandages
and having his teeth pulled out for Birdy.
Daniel Day-Lewis – one of the modern
masters of the method – catching
pneumonia while walking around New York
without a proper coat when preparing for
his role in Gangs of New York, or spending
the entire filming period for My Left Foot in
a wheelchair, being fed by crew members.
Halle Berry not showering for eight weeks
while filming Jungle Fever. And Jamie Foxx
having his eyelids glued shut to play blind
musician Ray Charles.

Joaquin Phoenix, left, in the western The Sisters Brothers: ‘The

moment the cameras started rolling, he became brooding,
taciturn even, disappearing into the role of Charlie Sisters.’
Photograph: Shanna Besson/Annapurna/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

The closest I have witnessed such

transformative behaviour was in working
with Joaquin Phoenix on the 2018 western
The Sisters Brothers. In pre-production, our
relationship was cordial. The moment the
cameras started rolling, however, he
became brooding, taciturn even,
disappearing into the role of Charlie Sisters
– we spoke little except for when
performing scenes together (though he was
a generous and accommodating scene
partner, no Hollywood diva). A year later,
when we were at the Toronto international
film festival to promote the film, Joaquin
was already in prep for his role as Arthur
Fleck in Joker, and his weight loss and
haphazard behaviour was disturbing –
sitting in a crowded room with headphones
on, only answering questions in
monosyllables.

Advertisement

Authenticity delights audiences. But where

does it end? If you’re playing Macbeth, must
you commit regicide? If you’re performing
Romeo do you have to fall in love with the
actor playing Juliet (and do you even have
to fancy her)? Well, no. Yet while all acting
is a form of pretence, you should have a
sense of what that person could be like “in
real life”. For me, and most actors I know,
doing background research is an essential
part of “finding a character”. We study the
character’s education and social
experience, their likes, dislikes and places
they have lived. How they speak, and so on.
What we can’t discover, we simply invent:
the imagination is as powerful a muscle as
biceps, glutes or abdominals for an actor.

But clearly the method works. For many

who adhere to it, glory at the Oscars seems
inevitable; Joaquin’s performance in Joker
won him an Academy Award. Maybe that’s
why it remains the most esoteric and
mysterious of acting techniques: it
produces such endlessly startling, award-
winning results, I’m tempted to try it
myself.

Rebecca Root is an actor. Her recent work

includes The Queen’s Gambit

… we have a small favour to ask. The

Guardian has no shareholders and no
billionaire owner. Just the determination
and passion to deliver high-impact global
reporting free from commercial or political
influence. Reporting like this is vital for
democracy, for fairness and to demand
better from the powerful.
We provide all this for free, for everyone to
read. We do this because we believe in
information equality. Greater numbers of
people can keep track of the events
shaping our world, understand their
impact on people and communities, and
become inspired to take meaningful
action. Millions can benefit from open
access to quality, truthful news, regardless
of their ability to pay for it.
Every contribution, however big or small,
powers our journalism and sustains our
future. Support the Guardian from as little
as $1 ; it only takes a minute. If you can,
please consider supporting us with a
regular amount each month. Thank you.

Single Monthly Annual

$5 per month

$10 per month

Other

Continue

Remind me in October

Topics
Film industry / Opinion
Biopics / Lady Gaga / Acting / House of Gucci /
Jeremy Strong / comment

View comments View on theguardian.com

Related Stories
Madness in their method:
have we fallen out of love
with actorly excess?

House of Gucci is ‘painful

and insulting’, says Gucci
family
8 months

Searches for Gucci label soar

after release of murder film
starring Lady Gaga
8 months

House of Gucci review D

Lady Gaga steers a steely
path through the madness

Opinion
Emily Maitlis is finally free
to say what needed saying:
the BBC has lost its nerve
Gaby Hinsliff
In Liverpool we are
shocked, grieving and
furious D but we will not let
violence define our city
What does the dramatic
fall in GCSE grades tell us?
That private schools were
gaming the system
An escaped 18ft python
found its way into a
Hampshire home D it’s more
common than you think

About us All topics

Contact us All writers

Complaints and Modern Slavery Act

corrections
Digital newspaper
Securedrop archive

Work for us Facebook

Privacy settings Twitter

Privacy policy

Cookie policy

Terms & conditions

Help

Advertise with us Support

The Guardian
Search jobs
Contribute
Patrons
Subscribe
Discount Codes

Back to top
© 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated
companies. All rights reserved.

Advertisement
ssehome.vn
Bảo Hành Chính Hãng 2 Mở
Năm