By Edie Bellingham
A Method to This Madness
I have been acting all of my life.
I love the thrill, the emotion, and the creativity that comes with theatre. However, it is safe to say that not everyone shares this same viewpoint. There’s a certain stigma attached to the arts, specifically for drama, that it has the ability to drive a person to madness or insanity. Now, although this is something that has been widely taken out of proportion, it can be argued that there is some foundation to this claim.
For example, a friend of mine once starred in a musical called “Honk!” when she was twelve. She played a beloved goose who, along with her partner, led their flock around the farm while singing rhymes and cheering for everyone. But, unfortunately, it ended in demise: they were all shot by a poacher. Dark for kids’ play, I know! To depict the death scene, it was a chain reaction; one more animal dying and collapsing every second until she and her ‘husband’ were left last.
They kept on trying out the scene with different directions on how to portray it, but she eventually got pulled aside to be commented on for her ‘strained’ and ‘rigid’ acting. Her teacher said she was too conscious of everything — every gesture, every movement — and it thus resulted in an uncomfortable performance. So, she told her to practice crying and wailing over and over again.
She did as she was told, a bit awkward at first — not taking it seriously whilst stifling laughs — until her teacher started saying different prompts that she had to react to as well. The frustration and angst she felt at that prompt, she had to channel into her acting.
They started off lighter at first, like “You failed your Maths test” or “You fell and spliced your knee.”
But then they started getting a bit… tougher.
“You just had a terrible fight with your best friend.“
“Someone you love has died.”
“Your parents are shouting at you.”
It’s safe to say she continued crying even after the class had concluded.
Actors, professional and mediocre alike, have a very strange and bizarre job if you really think about it. They must mentally become another — act, talk and think like they would — even in severe situations and environments, and then be expected to ‘snap’ back into their daily, normal self afterward.
The ironic thing is acting is now not so much about actually acting, but being. To the actor, it does not feel fake, after all, for they are living another’s reality. And so we learn to justify these seemingly absurd, exhausting techniques and practices in the name of this profession. Because it is effective.
What is Method Acting?
The technique is continually praised for its role in the creation of a plethora of award-winning actors and movies. But nowadays, it is now more known as the supposed “technique that got Heath Ledger killed”. Once sparking admiration, it now is seen as a mechanism to fear.
According to Film School Rejects, the creator of Method Acting (previously known as The System) was Konstantin Stanislavski, an esteemed theatre practitioner, actor, director, and founder of the Moscow Art Theatre. ‘The System’ was a model designed to help actors explore the mental state of their characters and recall emotional memories to act instead with authenticity.
This was later adopted by a colleague of Stansislavski, called Lee Strasberg, which is now majorly still in use today, predominantly in Hollywood. This was what escalated Method Acting into full effect; not simply thinking of the memory, but actually placing yourself into that memory, known as ‘Substitution’ (Bigelow). Instead of acting as a character, they have now become the character.
According to Backstage, one of The Method’s core principles is to use one’s own life experiences as the seed of creative imagination; it requires recreating an incident from the past, and to harness those real feelings for an explosive moment in a scene.
This can also be used even when actors are faced with unfamiliar situations or feelings, relying on Substitution to recall a memory that makes actors feel similar to how their character would in a specific circumstance. For example, an actor may have never experienced a loved one dying, but by substituting emotional memories that make them feel similar emotions of despair, it can still be a realistic performance.
However, the aspect that differentiates Stanislavski and Strasberg actors are the limits they stop at (Bigelow). Despite how effective substitution can be, it does not work for every single situation. Some situations are just too unfamiliar that nothing is comparable.
So, some actors — in the name of Method Acting — instead resort to replicating these emotions by actively experiencing them themselves. When done incorrectly or taken to the extreme, this is where the main danger lies.
Becoming your character is a tedious feat, especially if there are physical and/or mental restrictions. It goes without saying that when messing with the mind, there will always be repercussions. For characters with severe mental illness, for example, it is not only somewhat problematic for an actor to try and emulate it, but it is also extremely harmful.
According to NFI, over the years, actors like Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, and Adrien Brody have self-induced extreme weight loss through methods of borderline starvation in order to prepare for their roles in The Machinist, Black Swan and The Pianist (“Method Acting – Everything”). Brody additionally ventured the extra mile of abandoning his entire life and isolating himself from everyone — his friends, family, and lover — in order to truly adopt the mind of his character.
Jared Leto as the Joker repeatedly dressed up and acted as the clown even off-camera, creeping out both cast and crew members alike.
Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man reportedly deprived himself of sleep for more than 2 days before filming (“Method Acting – Everything”).
Or there was even a famous case where Frances McDormand in Blood Simple’s climax actually asked someone before to harshly grab her and, as she tried to escape, not let her go. This was meant to arouse genuine panic and fear.
It brings on the question of what may constitute a ‘great’ actor: their innate ability, or willpower to venture where others won’t?
Worth the Risk?
To conclude, despite its soiled reputation, Method Acting is — at its simplest —just an acting technique. It has given us some of the best performances in history, making its audience feel more intensely than ever, blown away by the extreme emotions and characters portrayed on screen.
But with the continual incidents of actors being pushed to the brink of insanity and impossibility — because they have applied the principles of Method Acting way out of proportion — we must begin to question whether the physical and mental health of these actors is worth simply a couple hours of entertainment.
When actors take Method Acting techniques to the extreme (i.e. they perform it inappropriately), they fall at risk of being placed in dangerous predicaments. Examples of this, as explained above, are starvation and rapid weight loss, loss of personal identity, prolonged exhaustion, a degraded mental state, and more.
I now ask you: is there a better way?