Method Acting

Deijavoo

"Method acting". Is there any better performances out there without it? 

Daniel Day-Lewis, Bob De Niro, Heath Ledger. Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen to name a few produce this way.  When I say "better" I guess I actually mean "more convincing". 

Deijavoo

The lad in The Machinist too. What's his name again?

Drew_TNBD

Deijavoo said:

The lad in The Machinist too. What's his name again?

Christian Bale bruuvvvv!

Hertz32

On the otherhand, Jared Leto's joker. 

Method acting was all he talked about in the run up to suicide squad and it tramspired to be a pile of poo, Leto's performance included. 

stimpsonslostson

Dustin Hoffman is another famous proponent.. wonder if that's why Hook is so good? 
There are many great actors who don't do it, several have criticised it as being unhealthy or unnecessary. 
Nicolas Cage said "there's a thin line between method acting & schizophrenia". 

EricTheWeary

Couple of years ago there was a documentary on radio 4 about it. Seems to very much lean on tapping into your own experience. Reliving your own worst experiences every time you have to play sad didn't seem much fun.

EricTheWeary

  

Deijavoo

stimpsonslostson said:

Dustin Hoffman is another famous proponent.. wonder if that's why Hook is so good? 
There are many great actors who don't do it, several have criticised it as being unhealthy or unnecessary. 
Nicolas Cage said "there's a thin line between method acting & schizophrenia". 

Suffer for my mild entertainment. Works for me.

Deijavoo

Drew_TNBD said:

Deijavoo said:

The lad in The Machinist too. What's his name again?

Christian Bale bruuvvvv!

That's the lad. What a film. Although he should have done it all in his Batman voice.

mudslide73

There are tons of great performances done without it. Spacey does it apparently but Michael Caine ("she was only... fifteen") does not. I love a good believable performance - a lot of the illusion comes from how the other actors react I'd imagine too.

What about method guitar playing?  

ICBM

stimpsonslostson said:

Nicolas Cage said "there's a thin line between method acting & schizophrenia". 

There is when you're Nicholas Coppola and you're trying to convince the world that you didn't get to be a star because of uncle Francis.

equalsql

I don't know if they are/were method actors but the two the have always impressed me are Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Also the young Al Pacino before he got all shouty.

boogieman

There's the great story about Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier when they made Marathon Man. Hoffman was a fan of method acting and had stayed awake for 72 hours straight to get into the right frame of mind for one scene. Olivier was not impressed and said "why don't you just try acting, dear boy?"  

Winny_Pooh

Cate Blanchette doesn't do method

mellowsun

I don't think Michael Caine does it, hence his cockney German Commandant in the Eagle has Landed.

Gassage

Trump too. For anyone to think you're that stupid is a hell of an achievement.

scrumhalf

Lawrence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man:

Upon being asked by his co-star how a previous scene had gone, one in which Hoffmann’s character had supposedly stayed up for three days, Hoffmann admitted that he too had not slept for 72 hours to achieve emotional verisimilitude. “My dear boy,” replied Olivier smoothly, “why don’t you just try acting?”

boogieman

scrumhalf said:

Lawrence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man:

Upon being asked by his co-star how a previous scene had gone, one in which Hoffmann’s character had supposedly stayed up for three days, Hoffmann admitted that he too had not slept for 72 hours to achieve emotional verisimilitude. “My dear boy,” replied Olivier smoothly, “why don’t you just try acting?”

Errr. Look a few posts up. 

thecolourbox

stimpsonslostson said:

Dustin Hoffman is another famous proponent.. wonder if that's why Hook is so good? 
There are many great actors who don't do it, several have criticised it as being unhealthy or unnecessary. 
Nicolas Cage said "there's a thin line between method acting & schizophrenia". 

I think the fact that Cage doesn't do it is a strong argument for the OP hypothesis personally

Chalky

Olivier's point was that method acting calls on the actor's similar prior personal experience whereas traditional acting calls on the actor's imagination.  He thought it unnecessary to be constrained by personal experience.

Both are viable foundations, but both additionally need the actor to convince the audience.  A personal history of wide and deep emotional experience doesn't automatically make that person an actor.

PolarityMan

Both pale into insignificance when compared to the quality of the CGI and who's on the soundtrack.