Method acting isn’t a new technique, but the idea of living the life of a character
in order to give an honest performance has only gotten more popular in the last few decades.
Some actors can take the technique a bit too far, however, pushing the limits of both themselves
and those around them.
Here are Screen Rant’s 10 Actors Who Almost Went Crazy in Their Roles.
Heath Ledger Few actors have immersed themselves in a role
quite like Ledger did when he was tapped to play Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Joker, back
in 2006.
The actor locked himself away in a London hotel room for a month, keeping a diary and
experimenting with various voices and mannerisms until he’d come up with his ideal vision
of the character.
The result was one of the greatest villainous performances of all time, one that earned
him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2009.
Tragically, Ledger never got to see his work on the big screen, dying of an accidental
prescription drug overdose the year prior.
Rumors that the role drove him to suicide or that he couldn’t leave the part behind
are probably exaggerating, but his last role will always have movie fans talking.
Robert De Niro De Niro’s well-known for paying a dentist
several thousands of dollars to grind his teeth down in order to pull off the look of
the psychotic Max Cady (Kay-dee), but he took the role much further than that.
The tattoos that the two-time Academy Award winner sports in the film were made with vegetable
dyes, which take months to fade, and he’d spent a similar amount of time reading up
on and studying the behavior of sex offenders.
De Niro’s performance reportedly creeped out Martin Scorsese as much as it did moviegoers,
and the actor would jokingly leave voice messages as Cady on his director’s machine just to
freak him out.
Maybe he wasn’t quite as deranged as he seemed.
Nicolas Cage Cage has made a career out of playing outlandish,
over-the-top characters.
From Vampire’s Kiss to Ghost Rider, Cage has never shied away from his unofficial title
as the craziest actor in Hollywood.
For his role as a disfigured Vietnam veteran in the 1984 drama, Birdy, Cage had four of
his teeth pulled just to add an extra dimension to the part.
He then shocked the film’s crew by wearing his character’s facial bandages (on and
off set) for five weeks straight.
Whether you choose to acknowledge his insane talent or if you’ve simply dismissed him
as a loon, there’s no denying Cage’s place as one of the most fearlessly dedicated thespians
in the industry.
Joaquin Phoenix Back in 2008, when this two-time Academy Award
nominee announced that he was quitting acting to pursue a career as a hip-hop artist, most
assumed it was a hoax.
After roughly a year and a half of bizarre behavior and public appearances resulted in
this 2010 mockumentary, which was later confirmed to be a hoax.
After the film received a decidedly mixed critical reaction, Phoenix took a break from
the acting game.
He’s since returned from his self-imposed hiatus to earn a third Academy Award nomination
for his phenomenal work in The Master, so it’s safe to say he’s now firmly back
on track.
Kate Winslet One of the most extraordinary talents working
today, Winslet holds the distinction as the youngest actor or actress in history to be
nominated for six Academy Awards.
Her first (and only) win came for her role as a former Nazi concentration camp guard
in this 2008 drama, a performance that apparently took a significant toll on the actress.
She’s said that it took months for her to fully break free of the part, equating leaving
the character behind to escaping a serious car accident.
Thankfully, Winslet has seemingly moved on in the years since, and she continues to be
one of the top actresses in Hollywood.
Adrien Brody The 6’5 Brody slimmed all the way down to
130 pounds to pull off the emaciated look of a Holocaust survivor in Roman Polanski’s
historical drama.
He’s since said that the genuine desperation that comes from starvation was something he
couldn’t fake, and at times he found himself wondering if he was going to be able to escape
the role with his sanity.
It reportedly took the actor over a year and a half to settle back into his normal life.
Considering that the role resulted in Brody becoming the youngest actor to ever notch
a Best Actor Oscar win, we’d say it was worth it.
Jamie Dornan Before Dornan gained worldwide fame for his
leading role in the 50 Shades of Grey adaptation, he was starring as the “Belfast Strangler”
in this BBC series opposite X-Files star Gillian Anderson.
In order to help get himself in the mindset of a serial killer, the 33 year old actor
confessed to following a woman off the train and pursuing her (from a distance) for several
blocks.
He probably should have kept that information to himself.
Shia LaBeouf LaBeouf’s made every effort to move on to
more serious roles since his days of palling around with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in
the Transformers franchise.
He’s become a very serious method actor, known for going to various extremes for his
movies, and his supporting role in David Ayer’s WWII film was no different.
He told an interviewer that he pulled his own tooth and slashed his own face with a
knife for a more realistic look before revealing that he hadn’t bathed in months and that
he’d “spent days watching horses die.”
Even for LaBeouf, that’s pretty out there.
Jared Leto The Clown Prince of Crime is not a role that
can be taken lightly, and Leto may have taken his preparation for the part even further
than Ledger did.
The 43 year old’s decision to stay in character in between takes isn’t all that out of the
ordinary, but his gift-giving habits certainly were.
He sent his fellow cast members a series of bizarre presents, including a box of bullets
for co-star Will Smith and a live rat for Margot Robbie.
He even sent the entire cast a video of him in character alongside a dead pig.
Apparently method gift-giving is a thing nowadays.
Daniel Day-Lewis Of all the method actors working today, Daniel
Day-Lewis may be the name most associated with the technique; no one embodies a character
quite like him.
From his work in My Left Foot (a film in which he broke two of his ribs because he refused
to cease his character’s hunched-over posture) to the six months he spent alone in the wilderness
preparing for The Last of the Mohicans, Day-Lewis dedicates his entire life to every role he
takes on.
But his three Academy Awards paint a very clear picture; he’s clearly doing something
right.
What’s your favorite example of an actor pushing himself to the limit?
Is method acting the only true way to embody a character?
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