List of 20 Actors Who Went Totally Method For Their Biopic Roles…And It’s Kind Of A Lot – Method acting is a technique that separates good actors from the all-time greats. This training means going beyond portraying the character in an attempt to literally become them. These committed actors sacrifice their minds, body, and spirit to transform into the characters we’ll never forget.
1. Daniel Day-Lewis refused to get out of his wheelchair while he filmed My Left Foot and damaged two ribs because of it — he insisted that the crew spoon-feed him.
Because real-life artist Christy Brown could only control his left foot, Daniel also learned how to paint using a knife that he held between his toes.
2. Hilary Swank tried to “pass as a boy” by cutting her hair, binding her breasts, speaking in a lower register, and putting socks down the front of her pants while she prepared to play trans man Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry.
Hilary went on to win an Oscar for her performance in the film, but in 2020 she said she felt a trans actor “would obviously be a lot more right for the role.”
3. Lady Gaga “lived” as Patrizia Reggiani for a “year and a half” and only spoke in an Italian accent for nine of those months while filming House of Gucci.
She told British Vogue, “It is three years since I started working on it, and I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as [Reggiani] for a year and a half. And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that. Off-camera. I never broke. I stayed with her.”
4. Jamie Foxx wore prosthetic eyelids so his eyes would be glued shut for 14 hours on filming days while he played Ray Charles in the movie Ray.
He told the New York Times that he experienced panic attacks during the first two weeks of filming before he became accustomed to the “unsettling, claustrophobic feeling.” He even shared that cast and crewmates often forgot that he couldn’t see and they’d accidentally “leave him sitting alone at a table after lunch on the assumption that he could get back to the set on his own.”
5. Leonardo DiCaprio slept inside of an animal carcass, ate raw bison meat, and was on the brink of hypothermia all while playing Hugh Glass in The Revenant.
However, in real life, Leo is strictly a vegetarian.
6. Robert Pattinson masturbated on set to completion while portraying Salvador Dalí in Little Ashes.
When asked why he didn’t just fake it for the camera Robert shared, “[It} just doesn’t work, so I pleasured myself in front of the camera.”
7. Ashton Kutcher gave himself pancreatitis and was hospitalized twice (!!!!) while preparing to play Steve Jobs in Jobs.
Steve Jobs was known to be a “fruitarian,” and lived on a mainly fruit diet, which Ashton tried to replicate. His wife Mila Kunis explained, “He was so dumb. He…only ate grapes at one point…we ended up in the hospital twice. With pancreatitis! It was really dumb!”
8. Charlize Theron wore dentures, shaved off her eyebrows, had her hair thinned out and fried repeatedly, and gained 30 pounds to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
She said, “This wasn’t a game we were playing called ‘Let’s try to make Charlize look ugly.’ I didn’t want it to look like a caricature. I just wanted it to look like Aileen.”
9. Forest Whitaker stayed in character while playing Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland even off set — it was so intense his family stopped speaking to him.
He also learned how to speak Swahili and primarily ate mashed bananas and beans.
10. Margot Robbie trained in ice skating for five hours a day, five days a week, for five months to play Tonya Harding in I, Tonya — she worked herself so hard she got a herniated disk in her neck.
She said, “When you’re a kid, you’re fearless, but starting at 26 years old, I had a lot of fear.”
11. Joaquin Phoenix totally abandoned his own sense of self, refused to talk to his family, and only lived as Johnny Cash for the entirety of filming Walk the Line.
He said, “I abandon my life when I work. I don’t wear the clothes or listen to the music that defines who I am. I don’t communicate with friends or family. It sounds intense, but it’s the process of getting there that is really hard.”
12. Jennifer Lopez slept in Selena Quintanilla’s bed while she prepared to portray the singer in Selena.
“I soaked up everything, I watched every interview that I could,” she said. “I slept in her bed at home. I talked to the whole family. I spent time with them. It can be melancholy and beautiful at the same time.”
13. Adrien Brody gave up his apartment, sold his car, disconnected his phones, and lost 30 pounds on a crash diet in order to play Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist.
“I was missing everyone and everything good,” he told BBC News. “But that put me right in the character. I want to feel that I’m experiencing something, I want to feel the journey, and I felt it.” Even after the film, it took him “over half a year” to get settled again.
14. Gary Oldman gave himself nicotine poisoning after smoking $20,000 worth of Winston Churchill’s favorite cigars for Darkest Hour.
Gary even went on to say, “You can’t have Winston Churchill without a cigar.”
15. Colin Firth developed headaches, a pinched nerve in his arm, and a stutter of his own after portraying George VI in The King’s Speech.
“I had to learn to stammer and then play someone trying desperately not to. It put my left arm to sleep – it was very peculiar. I must have been locking something, pinching a nerve. It was a semi-paralysis that would last for three or four days,” he explained. “Derek Jacobi said to me: ‘You could find it affecting your speech patterns for some time afterward. When the job’s over, don’t worry, it will go away.'”
16. Val Kilmer got so immersed in playing Jim Morrison in The Doors that he needed to get therapy just so he could come out of character.
Fans and even bandmates mistook Val for the real Jim Morrison on numerous occasions and some even have tattoos of him. He said, “It still boggles me to this day to see people with a tattoo of me playing him and not knowing it isn’t Jim. Happens more than you think.”
17. And finally, Christian Bale got a $3,000 neck exercise machine so he could thicken his neck to look like Dick Cheney’s for Vice.
He also learned a bunch about heart attacks and his research actually saved director Adam McKay’s life during one.
18. Daniel Day-Lewis
The crowned King of modern-day Method acting, the list of life-altering experiments Daniel Day-Lewis has undergone in order to relate to his characters is as long as the list of characters themselves. The now-retired Irish actor caught pneumonia on the set of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York; even between takes, Bill the Butcher wouldn’t have worn an insulated coat in the 19th century.
Other examples of the actor’s adherence to the Method include not bathing for the entirety of The Crucible, spending nights locked in solitary confinement while shooting In the Name of the Father, only eating food he could catch and kill himself in Last of the Mohicans and going around in a wheelchair, demanding to be spoon-fed for My Left Foot.
19. Kate Winslet
Historically, Method acting is usually considered a total sausage-fest: think of Brando, Bale and Day-Lewis (all on this list), who not only transform their bodies without fear of public backlash but engage in all manner of dangerous stunts to fully plunge into a role.
But then there’s Kate Winslet.
After portraying a Nazi concentration camp guard for the 2008 film The Reader, Winslet admitted that it took her months to recover from the role. “It’s like I’ve escaped from a serious car accident and need to understand what has just happened,“ she said about the experience. Luckily she had her then-husband, director Sam Mendes, to help her readjust.
20. Robert De Niro
One of the all-time greats, Robert De Niro studied directly under both Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, both of whom taught Stanislavski’s Method. For Raging Bull, De Niro sat at the feet of Jake LaMotta, the Italian middleweight boxer he portrayed. De Niro even participated in three fights in the ring himself, in addition to gaining 50 pounds on his then-skinny frame.
In preparation for Taxi Driver, De Niro went out and worked 12-hour shifts as a real New York cabbie. The actor also gets hung up on the smaller details of a character; he paid a dentist to grind down his teeth for his role as a psychopath stalker in Cape Fear.
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Last Updated on December 2, 2021 by 247 News Around The World
