Hello welcome to organic acting! I'm Chris and this is the problem with method acting
so in this video I'm going to break down some of the issues that I have with method acting some
of its problems some of its drawbacks now before I start really rile people up I'll just say some
of my favourite performances of all time have been by method actors I'm just trying to kind of
stir the hornet's nest a little bit or just look at the flip side of the argument if you want to
let me know what you think in the comments please do but just don't be afraid by some of my opinions
now we can't really broach the subject on method acting without talking about Konstantin
Stanislavski I've made a lot of videos on Stanislavski in the past I'll link above
but basically Stanislavski was a 19th century actor director practitioner who came up with a
system or a psycho technique or a method to help actors stay away from melodrama
from pretending and showing to actually experiencing and living a role
it was from there in the 20th century that practitioners like Adler and Strasberg and Meisner
took pieces of Stanislavski's method and made them their own they started to apply these to film
acting so Chris what are your problems with method acting well here's my first one my question is
if you're a method actor are you serving the script or serving yourself there are so many
examples of actors being caught up in their method to the point where they become more important
than anything else in the project there's a great example of Jim Carrey he released a documentary a
few years ago of his time playing Andy Kaufman in man on the moon and you can see him in his
trailer he's staying in character but he's he's completely alienating the people around him he's
being rude to them he's throwing tantrums the rest of the the crew and the cast can't
communicate with him what about the stories that we've read about heath ledger when he was playing
the joker locking himself away in a hotel room with his joker book that he'd made full of grizzly
pictures and crazy writing surely all this is taking the place of a decent healthy constructive
working environment you can't get close to those people Stanislavski always said there should be
no such thing as a star system no one should be more important than anyone else on that project
the original idea of the psycho technique was to create truth and performance and let actors
experience real emotion are these actors achieving this or are they just self-indulgent monsters the
next problem that i have is surely the message of the piece is more important than the performance
if you have a film that's coming out and there's this big method acting performance
sometimes it's sold on that performance I've taught a lot of videos about practitioners
who believe that the whole point of theatre and film and storytelling is for an audience to learn
and to make change in their lives and in society take Brecht for example and if you have a method
actor who is basically hijacking the whole project people aren't interested in the story they're not
listening to the story they're not learning from the story they're just obsessed with this method
acting performance my next issue is because method acting has been taken from Stanislavski's complete
method his whole psycho technique because people like Adler and Strasberg have taken pieces of it
it's no longer method it's just these fragments that have broken off that have just become this
diluted form of the original idea of the original psycho technique oh that omelette recipe again it
was bloody lovely oh I did enjoy it I've made some variations to the recipe though I've added
two gallons of water and a case full of raisins oh lovely next method acting takes a lot of work it
should do that's the whole point of method acting it's it's this in-depth process but my question is
is it worth it you've got so many jobs to do as an actor learning your lines hitting your marks
responding in the moment surely all this hard work of method acting is getting in the way
of the nitty-gritty of acting the basic fundamentals surely it's a block
to being an actor and my number one issue with method acting my number one problem is that no
one knows what method acting is anymore it's a word which is banded about left right and centre
if you have a film coming out and there's an actor who has changed their hair or shaved their head
put some weight on lost some weight everyone says oh they've gone all method yes I went full method
for this performance uh mostly to grow this moustache method acting has become a buzzword
in this industry even method actors can't describe what method acting is what is method acting
I've got a video on that what do you think about method acting
do you have any favourite performances do you have any problems with method acting
let us all know in the comments below as always I've been Chris thank you so much for watching
don't forget to like share subscribe I will see you next time bye bye