Method acting has so many ingredients it can be difficult to get them all working
together to create the final product. Top method chefs like Gary Oldman effortlessly
blend these ingredients together to give you food for your soul.
Hey Gary! How many people does this cake feed? Everyone!
All right. The first part of the method acting cake is physical change,
of making each character varied and unique. Gary Oldman is not afraid of using this ingredient
liberally: from Drexel Spivey in 1993's True Romance, to Zorg in 1997's the Fifth Element,
to George Smiley in 2011's Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, each of Gary Oldman's physical
transformations are breathtaking, allowing him to feel, experience, live in the character's skin,
For Mason Verger in 2001's Hannibal, Oldman subjected himself to hours of physical makeup.
He insisted the makeup and practical effects team use methods that were uncomfortable
and even painful to allow him to experience the physical state of the scarred and broken Verger.
Seemed like a good idea at the time. Emotion memory, sense or effective memory are
great starting points in the recipe. Basically an actor is using his or her own memories and
emotions - ones that are similar to the state of the character they're playing. Here we can see
Oldman using a book of stimuli including pictures of his daughter to help him reach an emotional
place. The book helps me get there. The pictures. The method acting cake isn't gonna taste the same
without research - discovering who your character really is, what past events have shaped them, how
their current circumstances are affecting them and how their motivations are driving them forward.
Playing a real life persona on the movie screen gives Oldman another opportunity to deliver.
For 1991's JFK, Oldman found Lee Harvey Oswald's character was underwritten on the page.
So, he flew to New Orleans, met contacts including Oswald's family and wife Marina so
as to prepare for the role. For 2017's Darkest Hour he read biographies on Winston Churchill,
studied film footage, visited Churchill's home at Blenheim Palace and spoke to Churchill's family
members. Baking with method doesn't just require physical work - an actor has to be
able to master the complexities of voice and accent. It can be a messy business.
We all know Gary Oldman can shout and scream with the best of them
but Oldman is able to use voice and accents in a musical fashion concentrating on volume:
I mearly suggest the position of the sun
if it is out would give you a rough idea of the time. Pitch:
Pace: Well people will truly understand why they're here
and what they're doing and they wouldn't need any other ugly motivations. And tone:
I can't find my action man. You mean G.I Joe. I haven't even been here five minutes ago,
it's very valuable. I want to kill! For darkest hour, Oldman nailed Churchill's cadence and tone
by working with an opera singer and a dialect teacher. I worked out the range in his voice.
I went to a piano or singing teacher and we learned, we worked out the range on the piano
and then I worked and did exercises and worked with this guy to get the sound and to lower
my voice. His drunk accent is on point too. You wouldn't happen to have a very big fork?
I don't care who you are as an actor, at what stage in your career,
the act of baking a method cake can be exhausting. And even if your baking prowess is
strong that doesn't stop a gritty sour taste from appearing in your work. Incredibly by the 90s,
Oldman was concerned with being typecast - seeing all the offers that came his way as bad guy roles.
But here comes the real genius of Gary Oldman and proof of his mastery of the method:
each of his bad guy roles are fully fleshed out realised characters. Ones we can empathize with.
Look at Oldman's portrayal of Ivan Korshunov in 1997's Air Force One: a character prepared
to hijack and murder yet who believes his country and homeland has been destroyed and defiled by the
west. You have given our country to gangsters and prostitutes. You have taken everything from us.
Oldman gives us a way to empathise if not sympathise with the character.
How about Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula? The quintessential evil character.
Even here Oldman allows us to feel the tragedy of a man cursed by lost love and longing.