Robert De Niro is one of the best-known actors working today with a career spanning more than 50 years. He has won 2 Academy Awards, taking home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Godfather Part II and Best Actor for Raging Bull. De Niro has also picked up a further 5 Oscar nominations, including most recently for 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook.
The secret to De Niro’s success is his reliance on the Method. As a younger man he studied acting with the highly respected acting coach Stella Adler and with legendary method acting teacher Lee Strasberg. This early grounding in method acting has helped to shape De Niro’s career allowing him to become one of the most successful and respected actors of his generation.
Acting instinctively
De Niro is a big believer in acting instinctively. Speaking to Esquire, he said:
“I always tell actors when they go in for an audition: Don’t be afraid to do what your instincts tell you.”
When auditioning, you’re not just selling your vision of that character, you’re selling what you can do uniquely as an actor. By following your instincts, you are showing a casting director what you have to offer them. Even if your audition doesn’t match the casting person’s and the director’s vision for that part, if your performance is good, they will remember. The examples of actors going for one part and ending up being offered another are too many to recount.
Acting instinctively might sound like the opposite of method acting or like something you could do without training. Nothing could be further from the truth. Learning method acting techniques is about training your acting instincts so that when you come to perform, you are capable of allowing those instincts to take over. This leads to totally authentic, unmannered performances. Method actors do their thinking and planning beforehand so that they don’t have to work out what to do next in the middle of a performance; they just know. This is what De Niro means about following your instincts.
Master of subtlety
Although De Niro has given some big, bold performances in his career, one of the reasons he is so respected is for his range. An important thing to understand about method acting is, it doesn’t always mean giving big, demonstrative displays of emotion. De Niro is capable of exhibiting great subtlety in his acting and method acting is often at its most powerful when used in a more restrained fashion. As De Niro once said:
“It’s important not to indicate. People don’t try to show their feelings, they try to hide them.”
This is a key lesson to learn: just because you are using affective memory and other techniques to generate real emotions on stage or in front of a camera, that does not mean you have to let all of those feelings out. With camera work in particular, feeling an emotion and then working to repress it can create a layered and deeply real performance unachievable by other means.
Committed to preparation
Method acting is all about grounding your performance in the real. This is something Robert De Niro understands deeply, which is why he has gone to exceptional lengths over the years to prepare for his roles by finding real experiences to anchor them in.
For his starring role in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver, De Niro wanted to really understand what it was like to live the lifestyle of a New York cabbie. To achieve this, he went out and worked 12-hours shifts driving a real cab in New York. To play real-life boxer Jake LaMotta, De Niro spent hundreds of hours sparring with La Motta and even fought in 3 real boxing matches.
This kind of preparation is not strictly necessary for method acting as the Method teaches actors to use memories of experiences they already have. This means that you can produce an authentic performance based on a scenario you have never encountered by working out its emotional core and relating this to experiences that brought out similar emotions in yourself.
However, if you can more directly experience situations similar to the ones you are being asked to simulate, this can add an extra layer of verisimilitude. It’s also worth bearing in mind that, even if you can’t match the exact circumstances your character will be going through, you can still work out what emotions they are likely to be feeling and then look at what experiences you can seek out to stimulate the same ones.
No room for ego
People often remark that Robert De Niro is surprisingly humble for such a successful actor and many consider him to be quite shy. He once said:
“I’ve never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on whether I was to be an actor or a personality.”
This lack of ego is crucial to the method actor. Great acting involves truly becoming someone else and to do that you have to be willing to sacrifice your own ego. You can’t be thinking about whether you will look foolish or cast yourself in an unflattering light. You have to totally commit to the character and do what is right for them, not been constrained by your own self-image.
Putting your ego aside is also crucial for working effectively with the rest of the cast and crew on a production. De Niro is clear that acting is about being open to what others have to say:
“As an actor, it is important to be a good listener. You need to listen to what others have to say, the director, the producer, your co-actor… everyone. I try to listen to everyone and take their inputs on what I have to do.”
De Niro also offers really good advice about getting into acting for the right reasons:
“Don’t expect to be famous – do it because you really love doing it and have fun doing it.”
Learn method acting like Robert De Niro
If you aspire to be a truly great actor like Robert De Niro, you have to study method acting. The Method has been used by 80% of Oscar-winning actors this century and offers an unrivalled ability to bring emotional truth and an enviable level of professionalism to every role you play.
We offer both 3-Day Method Acting Boot Camps for those wanting to explore the world of method acting and a comprehensive 1-Year Ultimate Acting Programme. This year-long course of study covers everything needed to become a professional actor, including a full understanding of the Method and a practical insight into the business of acting, giving you the skills to start getting paid acting work right away.
To find out more, please take a look around the rest of the website and, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Know thyself.
An ancient saying, and the first thing on the list of our Ultimate Acting Rules. To know yourself is to have a deep understanding of who you are, not a vague list of likes and dislikes. You should know the psychology behind why you like and do certain things. Once you know this, you know which buttons to push to get the most out of your performances. Secondary to this is knowing others: if you can understand the types of people and actors your scene partners are, you can work together to make the whole performance greater than the sum of its parts.
We believe that part of “knowing ourselves” is being able to learn and grow as a person. We like our students to be true to their core self, but willing to push themselves and develop as people.
A great actor will develop quickly. To help you get a head start on your career, we’ve explained three types of approach to acting: risk-taking, method, and hobbyist.
The Risk-Taking Actor
He who dares, wins.
Daring, risk-taking performances are those that risk you being ridiculed, or failing. You will fail sometimes; no-one is infallible. They say the greater the risk, the greater the reward – and this is particularly true in a creative career, like acting.
Taking risks helps you to stand out from the crowd, for better or worse; and in your early acting career being memorable is one of the most important things you can do.
Risk-taking also shows a desire to further than just memorising lines. You’re creating an interpretation and showing casting directors that you’re a creative – someone who will help enhance their work, not just parrot it.
The Method Actor
We talk a lot about the method here, and that’s because we swear by it. When over 80% of Oscar winners are method actors, you know there’s something to it. If you study with us, you will learn how to use the method in your acting; but can you use the method to forward your career?
Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.
This saying speaks of tackling your aspirations in a way very like method acting: it says to actively become what you want to be instead of waiting for it to happen to you. When it comes to auditioning, there’s no better advice. Directors and casting agents look for actors who are prepared to commit themselves to a role, so turning up “dressed for the job” is a good sign that you’re the best choice.
Dressing for the job at an audition doesn’t necessarily mean turning up in character; that could be overkill. However, turning up with subtle allusions to the part you’re auditioning for will help them envision you in the role.
For example, Andrew Lincoln – the lead actor on The Walking Dead – wasn’t exactly a household name. When he went to audition for the now-famous role of Rick Grimes, a hardened leader of rag-tag survivors, he’d been coping with the birth of his second child. He naturally looked haggard, and was brusque. He got the part. He might have method acted his way to success by accident, but it was the method all the same.
The Hobbyist Actor
Not everyone who acts is able or willing to turn it into a career. Although my students are committed to acting as a career, there are plenty of people out there – you might be one – to whom acting is a passion and a pleasure, and who don’t want to go through the hard years of trying to earn a living off it before that big break.
As a hobbyist, you’re best off pursuing independent projects or joining community theatre groups. You could even do voice acting or advertising on the side of a full-time job.
In terms of a career, hobbyist acting can be a great choice. Not only are you improving your public speaking skills and charisma, but you’re also forming a network of other hobbyists from all kinds of fields. All that different life experience in one theatre is sure to help you develop an affective memory, and make you a local star!
If you’re currently a hobbyist actor and considering becoming a professional, you may have to re-brand yourself.
So Who Are You?
The best actors are also experts on human nature. When trying to decide what type of actor you are, you should first learn what kind of person you are. One tried and true way of doing this is by discovering your Jungian archetype. Carl Jung’s famous archetypes can not only help you understand your character, but also yourself. Try this quiz to figure out who you are.
If you’re passionate about the method or consider yourself a risk-taker, why not see what we can offer you?
If you want to be a great actor you need commitment. Sounds simple, right? But what does it actually mean? For most truly great actors, commitment is about really immersing yourself in a role, finding a way to stop “acting” and start giving the audience something real. That means not having to pretend to feel the emotions required by the script, but actually being able to feel them on demand.
This is the goal of method acting.
Method actors often go to extreme lengths to find the right headspace for their characters. They will put themselves through the same experiences their character goes through so that they don’t have to pretend to know how their character feels – they will have lived it. This sort of commitment to character is what separates so many elite actors from the rest, which is why it’s not surprising that over 80% of Oscar-winning actors this century have been method actors.
The following are just some of the most famous examples of actors going the extra mile to really inhabit their characters. If you want to up your acting game and kick-start a professional acting career, you could do a lot worse than following their example.
Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2
Mickey Rourke’s performance as tragic villain Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2 is one of the most memorable things about the film – not a bad achievement when starring opposite the ever charismatic Robert Downey Jr.
Rourke’s character starts the film having spent years in a Russian prison, so what did the actor do to prepare? He went to Russian and spent time in a prison himself. Now, an actor of Mickey Rourke’s standing does not need to spend time in a Russian prison in order to get roles. The reason he does it so he doesn’t have to pretend, he doesn’t have to use his imagination, he’s “been there and done that”.
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Black Swan playing an elite ballet dancer who slowly loses her grip on reality. Portman prepared for the role with over a year of ballet training, including spending 6 months training 5 hours a day, six days a week.
As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:
You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.
As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.
Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver
Robert De Niro has had many memorable roles over the years, but one of the first that helped to cement him as Hollywood royalty was 1976’s Taxi Driver. For his role as the eponymous taxi driver, Travis Bickle, De Niro prepared by working 12-hour shifts as an actual cab driver in New York.
This is just one example of the lengths De Niro has gone to over the years for his craft – a level of commitment that has earned his 2 Academy Awards and a further 5 nominations. Robert De Niro’s ability to truly become his characters is why he is one of the most successful actors working today with his most recent Oscar nomination coming in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook.
Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.
Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry
How many people can say they’ve put in two Oscar-winning performances by the time they turned 30? Hilary Swank is one, having won the Best Actress Oscar for both 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.
Although her preparation for Million Dollar Baby was gruelling, it was the work she did as the transgender Brandon Teena in Boy Don’t Cry that really made people sit up and pay attention. In preparation for the role Swank spent months going out disguised as a man to get as close as she possibly good to experiencing what it’s like to enter the world as a transgender person.
Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:
It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.
Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best known method actors of our time and with good reason – he really knows how to commit to a role. The tales of the extremes he goes to in preparing for a part are legendary, but perhaps most amazing is how we went about getting into character for Last of the Mohicans.
Day-Lewis spent 6 months living alone in the wilderness in Alabama tracking, hunting and skinning animals for food. Supposedly the actor was so committed he refused to eat anything he hadn’t killed himself as he didn’t want to undermine the authenticity of his preparation.
This dedication to character has earned Daniel Day-Lewis the Academy Award for Best Actor 3 times, a feat no other actor has yet achieved. With his first Oscar coming for 1989’s My Left Foot and the most recent for 2012’s Lincoln, Day-Lewis is another actor who proves that method acting provides a formula for long-term acting success.
Want to know how to achieve real acting commitment? Our One Year Ultimate Acting Programme will teach you the attitude and skills you need. The course starts in October and the deadline for applications is 8th June with auctions taking place on 15th June. There are only 16 places available, so don’t delay as we are always inundated with applications each year. Need to find out more? Please feel free to get in touch.
If you want to be a great actor you need commitment. Sounds simple, right? But what does it actually mean? For most truly great actors, commitment is about really immersing yourself in a role, finding a way to stop “acting” and start giving the audience something real. That means not having to pretend to feel the emotions required by the script, but actually being able to feel them on demand.
This is the goal of method acting.
Method actors often go to extreme lengths to find the right headspace for their characters. They will put themselves through the same experiences their character goes through so that they don’t have to pretend to know how their character feels – they will have lived it. This sort of commitment to character is what separates so many elite actors from the rest, which is why it’s not surprising that over 80% of Oscar-winning actors this century have been method actors.
The following are just some of the most famous examples of actors going the extra mile to really inhabit their characters. If you want to up your acting game and kick-start a professional acting career, you could do a lot worse than following their example.
Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2
Mickey Rourke’s performance as tragic villain Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2 is one of the most memorable things about the film – not a bad achievement when starring opposite the ever charismatic Robert Downey Jr.
Rourke’s character starts the film having spent years in a Russian prison, so what did the actor do to prepare? He went to Russian and spent time in a prison himself. Now, an actor of Mickey Rourke’s standing does not need to spend time in a Russian prison in order to get roles. The reason he does it so he doesn’t have to pretend, he doesn’t have to use his imagination, he’s “been there and done that”.
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Black Swan playing an elite ballet dancer who slowly loses her grip on reality. Portman prepared for the role with over a year of ballet training, including spending 6 months training 5 hours a day, six days a week.
As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:
You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.
As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.
Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver
Robert De Niro has had many memorable roles over the years, but one of the first that helped to cement him as Hollywood royalty was 1976’s Taxi Driver. For his role as the eponymous taxi driver, Travis Bickle, De Niro prepared by working 12-hour shifts as an actual cab driver in New York.
This is just one example of the lengths De Niro has gone to over the years for his craft – a level of commitment that has earned his 2 Academy Awards and a further 5 nominations. Robert De Niro’s ability to truly become his characters is why he is one of the most successful actors working today with his most recent Oscar nomination coming in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook.
Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.
Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry
How many people can say they’ve put in two Oscar-winning performances by the time they turned 30? Hilary Swank is one, having won the Best Actress Oscar for both 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.
Although her preparation for Million Dollar Baby was gruelling, it was the work she did as the transgender Brandon Teena in Boy Don’t Cry that really made people sit up and pay attention. In preparation for the role Swank spent months going out disguised as a man to get as close as she possibly good to experiencing what it’s like to enter the world as a transgender person.
Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:
It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.
Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best known method actors of our time and with good reason – he really knows how to commit to a role. The tales of the extremes he goes to in preparing for a part are legendary, but perhaps most amazing is how we went about getting into character for Last of the Mohicans.
Day-Lewis spent 6 months living alone in the wilderness in Alabama tracking, hunting and skinning animals for food. Supposedly the actor was so committed he refused to eat anything he hadn’t killed himself as he didn’t want to undermine the authenticity of his preparation.
This dedication to character has earned Daniel Day-Lewis the Academy Award for Best Actor 3 times, a feat no other actor has yet achieved. With his first Oscar coming for 1989’s My Left Foot and the most recent for 2012’s Lincoln, Day-Lewis is another actor who proves that method acting provides a formula for long-term acting success.
Want to know how to achieve real acting commitment? Our One Year Ultimate Acting Programme will teach you the attitude and skills you need. The course starts in October and the deadline for applications is 8th June with auctions taking place on 15th June. There are only 16 places available, so don’t delay as we are always inundated with applications each year. Need to find out more? Please feel free to get in touch.
If you want to be a great actor you need commitment. Sounds simple, right? But what does it actually mean? For most truly great actors, commitment is about really immersing yourself in a role, finding a way to stop “acting” and start giving the audience something real. That means not having to pretend to feel the emotions required by the script, but actually being able to feel them on demand.
This is the goal of method acting.
Method actors often go to extreme lengths to find the right headspace for their characters. They will put themselves through the same experiences their character goes through so that they don’t have to pretend to know how their character feels – they will have lived it. This sort of commitment to character is what separates so many elite actors from the rest, which is why it’s not surprising that over 80% of Oscar-winning actors this century have been method actors.
The following are just some of the most famous examples of actors going the extra mile to really inhabit their characters. If you want to up your acting game and kick-start a professional acting career, you could do a lot worse than following their example.
Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2
Mickey Rourke’s performance as tragic villain Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2 is one of the most memorable things about the film – not a bad achievement when starring opposite the ever charismatic Robert Downey Jr.
Rourke’s character starts the film having spent years in a Russian prison, so what did the actor do to prepare? He went to Russian and spent time in a prison himself. Now, an actor of Mickey Rourke’s standing does not need to spend time in a Russian prison in order to get roles. The reason he does it so he doesn’t have to pretend, he doesn’t have to use his imagination, he’s “been there and done that”.
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Black Swan playing an elite ballet dancer who slowly loses her grip on reality. Portman prepared for the role with over a year of ballet training, including spending 6 months training 5 hours a day, six days a week.
As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:
You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.
As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.
Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver
Robert De Niro has had many memorable roles over the years, but one of the first that helped to cement him as Hollywood royalty was 1976’s Taxi Driver. For his role as the eponymous taxi driver, Travis Bickle, De Niro prepared by working 12-hour shifts as an actual cab driver in New York.
This is just one example of the lengths De Niro has gone to over the years for his craft – a level of commitment that has earned his 2 Academy Awards and a further 5 nominations. Robert De Niro’s ability to truly become his characters is why he is one of the most successful actors working today with his most recent Oscar nomination coming in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook.
Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.
Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry
How many people can say they’ve put in two Oscar-winning performances by the time they turned 30? Hilary Swank is one, having won the Best Actress Oscar for both 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.
Although her preparation for Million Dollar Baby was gruelling, it was the work she did as the transgender Brandon Teena in Boy Don’t Cry that really made people sit up and pay attention. In preparation for the role Swank spent months going out disguised as a man to get as close as she possibly good to experiencing what it’s like to enter the world as a transgender person.
Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:
It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.
Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best known method actors of our time and with good reason – he really knows how to commit to a role. The tales of the extremes he goes to in preparing for a part are legendary, but perhaps most amazing is how we went about getting into character for Last of the Mohicans.
Day-Lewis spent 6 months living alone in the wilderness in Alabama tracking, hunting and skinning animals for food. Supposedly the actor was so committed he refused to eat anything he hadn’t killed himself as he didn’t want to undermine the authenticity of his preparation.
This dedication to character has earned Daniel Day-Lewis the Academy Award for Best Actor 3 times, a feat no other actor has yet achieved. With his first Oscar coming for 1989’s My Left Foot and the most recent for 2012’s Lincoln, Day-Lewis is another actor who proves that method acting provides a formula for long-term acting success.
Want to know how to achieve real acting commitment? Our One Year Ultimate Acting Programme will teach you the attitude and skills you need. The course starts in October and the deadline for applications is 8th June with auctions taking place on 15th June. There are only 16 places available, so don’t delay as we are always inundated with applications each year. Need to find out more? Please feel free to get in touch.
If you want to be a great actor you need commitment. Sounds simple, right? But what does it actually mean? For most truly great actors, commitment is about really immersing yourself in a role, finding a way to stop “acting” and start giving the audience something real. That means not having to pretend to feel the emotions required by the script, but actually being able to feel them on demand.
This is the goal of method acting.
Method actors often go to extreme lengths to find the right headspace for their characters. They will put themselves through the same experiences their character goes through so that they don’t have to pretend to know how their character feels – they will have lived it. This sort of commitment to character is what separates so many elite actors from the rest, which is why it’s not surprising that over 80% of Oscar-winning actors this century have been method actors.
The following are just some of the most famous examples of actors going the extra mile to really inhabit their characters. If you want to up your acting game and kick-start a professional acting career, you could do a lot worse than following their example.
Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2
Mickey Rourke’s performance as tragic villain Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2 is one of the most memorable things about the film – not a bad achievement when starring opposite the ever charismatic Robert Downey Jr.
Rourke’s character starts the film having spent years in a Russian prison, so what did the actor do to prepare? He went to Russian and spent time in a prison himself. Now, an actor of Mickey Rourke’s standing does not need to spend time in a Russian prison in order to get roles. The reason he does it so he doesn’t have to pretend, he doesn’t have to use his imagination, he’s “been there and done that”.
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Black Swan playing an elite ballet dancer who slowly loses her grip on reality. Portman prepared for the role with over a year of ballet training, including spending 6 months training 5 hours a day, six days a week.
As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:
You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.
As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.
Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver
Robert De Niro has had many memorable roles over the years, but one of the first that helped to cement him as Hollywood royalty was 1976’s Taxi Driver. For his role as the eponymous taxi driver, Travis Bickle, De Niro prepared by working 12-hour shifts as an actual cab driver in New York.
This is just one example of the lengths De Niro has gone to over the years for his craft – a level of commitment that has earned his 2 Academy Awards and a further 5 nominations. Robert De Niro’s ability to truly become his characters is why he is one of the most successful actors working today with his most recent Oscar nomination coming in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook.
Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.
Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry
How many people can say they’ve put in two Oscar-winning performances by the time they turned 30? Hilary Swank is one, having won the Best Actress Oscar for both 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.
Although her preparation for Million Dollar Baby was gruelling, it was the work she did as the transgender Brandon Teena in Boy Don’t Cry that really made people sit up and pay attention. In preparation for the role Swank spent months going out disguised as a man to get as close as she possibly good to experiencing what it’s like to enter the world as a transgender person.
Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:
It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.
Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best known method actors of our time and with good reason – he really knows how to commit to a role. The tales of the extremes he goes to in preparing for a part are legendary, but perhaps most amazing is how we went about getting into character for Last of the Mohicans.
Day-Lewis spent 6 months living alone in the wilderness in Alabama tracking, hunting and skinning animals for food. Supposedly the actor was so committed he refused to eat anything he hadn’t killed himself as he didn’t want to undermine the authenticity of his preparation.
This dedication to character has earned Daniel Day-Lewis the Academy Award for Best Actor 3 times, a feat no other actor has yet achieved. With his first Oscar coming for 1989’s My Left Foot and the most recent for 2012’s Lincoln, Day-Lewis is another actor who proves that method acting provides a formula for long-term acting success.
Want to know how to achieve real acting commitment? Our One Year Ultimate Acting Programme will teach you the attitude and skills you need. The course starts in October and the deadline for applications is 8th June with auctions taking place on 15th June. There are only 16 places available, so don’t delay as we are always inundated with applications each year. Need to find out more? Please feel free to get in touch.
Many of the most well-known actors in the 21st century use ‘The Method’ in order to create outstanding and memorable performances.
Only about one or two per cent of the acting industry actually use Method acting but if you look at who’s in that group, it’s usually all the top creative actors in Hollywood. – Brian Timoney
Method acting is a technique that is used to draw upon life experiences and channel them through the part that you’re playing. Typically an actor will carry out various Method processes before, during and after being on-set or stage in order to really become aligned with the role. The result is a superior style of performance that creates in-depth and believable characters and produces electric chemistry between cast members.
Controversy Surrounding The Method
The Method has not been without its fair share of criticism and scepticism over the years. Even though the Method has been responsible for some of the greatest acting of our time, it is sometimes portreyed as being unnecessary or even dangerous.
Some co-stars may become irritated by a method actor’s refusal to break character between takes. Will Smith who is in the upcoming movie ‘Suicide Squad’ recently gave an interview about his method actor co-star Jared Leto who is hugely in-demand at the moment.
I’ve never actually met Jared Leto. We worked together for 6 months and we’ve never exchanged a word outside of ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ We’ve never said ‘Hello’ or ‘Good day.’ I’ve only ever spoken to him with me as Deadshot and him as The Joker. I literally have not met him yet. Not a single word exchanged off-camera. He was all in on the Joker.
Here is Leto talking about the role:
Similarly, three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is known to take his method acting to an extremely intense level in order to get to grips with the characters that he has played. He is thought not to have broken character for three months whilst filming ‘Lincoln’. He even insisted that the cast, crew and director Steven Spielberg address him as ‘Mr President’. Perhaps he went one step too far when signing off text messages with “Yours A”. Critics have pointed out that Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t have been able to send a text message in the 1860s!
The commitment and devotion that method actors display towards honing their craft can be hard for co-stars, friends and family to understand but it does create some truly fine performances that audiences all over the world can be thankful for.
Taking It Too Far
Of course, there are also well-publicised cases of method actors who have gone too far. Perhaps the most famous in recent times is the late Heath Ledger who became obsessed with his role of the Joker. He is thought to have locked himself in his apartment for up to a month before filming and could only manage a couple of hours sleep per night because he was so absorbed in the character. Unfortunately, Ledger overdosed on prescription drugs before the film was released and many believe that the role was too much of a mental challenge for him.
Yet even with the controversy that surrounds the Method, it is still the most successful acting technique that is practised at the moment. This is because method acting really works!
Oscar-Winning Performances
Does method acting work? Well, over 80% of Oscar winner ‘Best Actor’ awards have been won by method actors. This amounts to over 100 method actors who have taken home this prestigious award. This is far from coincidence and is down to the sheer perseverance and dedication that method actors apply to their work. Method acting is not a gimmick nor a simple trick of the trade. It requires a great deal of discipline and training in order to reach the level of quality performance that audiences expect from Oscar winners.
The Method requires an actor to build the inner life of a character. The technique is not just about trotting out some memorised lines, but involves awareness of a character’s ongoing thoughts, perceptions, emotional responses and sensations. In order to be comfortable doing this, an actor must first be able to master their instrument, which is their own self. By training an actor’s personal senses, it is then possible to combine those feelings with the character and event that are being portrayed.
Method Relaxation To Conquer Stage Fright
The Method requires total relaxation before a performance. This is critical to the success of an Oscar-nominated method actor such as Bradley Cooper. In advance of playing the role of Chris Kyle in ‘American Sniper’, Cooper noted down all of his dreams for a week –
It’s a way to prepare, to relax, to open up.
Stage fright is also a concern for many actors. Laurence Olivier famously said, “This is what it must be like to give birth”, whilst Stephen Fry told the Guardian that stage fright was like dying. It can certainly become crippling for some and threatens to entirely overwhelm the skill of an actor. These nerves essentially stem from a fear of getting it wrong – this is because the actor is concentrating on their own needs rather than the feelings of the character. Practising specialist Method relaxation techniques before a performance will ensure that your mind is occupied only with what is important in the mind of the character, rather than being preoccupied by your own ego.
Affective Memory
Perhaps one of the aspects of the Method which is at the very heart of its success is the use of affective memory. This is the ability to recall and use a strong emotional experience from your past in order to recreate a specific emotion on-demand in a scene. It is an extremely effective technique to help actors find a parallel between their own lives and the character arc of the role they are playing. Christopher Walken remembered the feelings of abandonment and betrayal that he had experienced as a child during an unpleasant summer camp trip. He used those negative and frightening memories to play the shocking Russian Roulette scene in ‘Deer Hunter’ for which he won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Oscars in 1978.
Free Your Mind And Body
Method acting also works with actors by allowing them to free up various parts of their physical or mental being in order to become more expressive. Vocal exercises are carried out during method training to develop good diction and learn how to project the voice effectively. Actors who possess a natural accent can learn how to reduce it whilst developing other accents that are essential for a role.
Physical acting is also vital for creating an engaging performance. Movement training will teach method actors how to use their entire body, rather than just their head. One of the ways that method actors have a magnetic stage presence is by using animal exercises throughout their performances. This works by visualising the physical and psychological characteristics of a certain animal and then applying them to your role.
It may be surprising to audiences that animal exercises are not confined to shows such as ‘Cats’. Robert de Niro studied the movement of a crab to offer a unique angle to his portrayal of Travis Bickle in the 1976 movie ‘Taxi Driver’. He felt that the character of Bickle was shifty and indirect. Similarly Marlon Brando mimicked an ape for the role of Stanley Kowalski in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ whilst Dustin Hoffman acted like a weasel with a limp to play Ratso in ‘Midnight Cowboy’.
Method acting has many benefits to offer working actors of today. Aside from the wonderful performances that are promised as a result of following this incredible style of acting, the technique is also a useful toolbox for actors to dip into throughout their career. From gaining inspiration for a character, to the more mundane tasks such as learning lines, the Method offers clear processes through which to support an actor along their journey into character. Actors will become alive during their performances and will be able to summon self-awareness without then tipping into the unwelcome ground of self-consciousness.
Of course, many of the exercises associated with the Method are extremely powerful. Reliving past traumatic experiences through the use of affective memory for instance, can cause some deeply painful emotions to be uncovered. Therefore we consider it to be unwise to practice certain aspects of the Method without undergoing specialist training. Rather than dabbling in the Method to decide if it’s for you, it would be far safer and more effective to practise some of these exercises in the secure environment of a Method acting class.
Our Introduction to Method Acting Boot Camp is a 3 day intensive programme and is the perfect way to discover if you have the drive and determination to kick start your method acting career. You will become completely immersed in the Method during this short course. Want to know more? Apply for our next bootcamp which takes place in Central London from the 15th-17th July.
“Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.” – Meryl Streep
For aspiring film actors, winning an Academy Award (more commonly known as an ‘Oscar’) is the ultimate accolade. It shows that you are capable of performing at a level few other actors are able to achieve and is the ultimate seal of approval from the film industry. But what makes an Oscar-winning actor? What skills do they have in common that makes them first among their peers? Well, for many of them, it comes down to their familiarity with ‘The Method’.
Over 80% of Best Actor Academy Awards this century have been won by method actors who use The Method to take their performance skills to a level beyond what most non-method actors can achieve. There are many aspects to mastering The Method, but there are several key characteristics that we see time and time again in Oscar-winning method actors that are well worth emulating on your road to success.
Over 80% of Best Actor Academy Awards this century have been won by method actors
Dedication to character
Method actors will often go to great lengths to create an authentic performance. In preparation for his Oscar-nominated leading role in Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro actually worked as a cab driver, reportedly putting in 12-hour shifts driving fares around New York City to get into character.
Another common technique is to look to the animal kingdom for inspiration. Many followers of The Method base their physical approach to a role on different animals to give their characters unique and arresting ways of moving. For Taxi Driver De Niro based his performance on a crab as he felt his character was indirect and tended to shift from side to side. As Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, Marlon Brando imitated an ape, while Dustin Hoffman referenced a weasel in Midnight Cowboy. Method Acting training includes specific classes focusing on animal work to help actors master this important dramatic tool.
Using genuine emotions
Affective memory is a technique method actors learn, which allows them to tap into their own memories to create real emotional responses during a performance. This is achieved by working out the emotion they need to portray and then using experiences in their own life that triggered similar feelings in order to produce a genuine emotional response that recreates those feelings.
To do this, actors need to really know themselves, their own psyche, and how to explore this for dramatic effect. Learning to be a method actor involves learning to better know yourself and your own emotions and how to use your life experiences to create truly raw, engaging performances.
Tapping into their own life experiences
Of course, most actors will be called upon to act in scenes that have no direct analogue in their own lives. The trick is to understand how to successfully relate the emotions you need to convey with a relevant experience in your own life, even if the connection is not immediately obvious.
When filming the famous Russian Roulette scene for the film Deer Hunter, Christopher Walken said he was recalling being sent to summer camp by his parents, which he hated. He was able to use those feelings of being betrayed, ostracised, and alone to inform his performance in a totally different scenario because it required the same feelings from his character.
Strong self-discipline
All of this focus on emotions might make it sound like method actors are likely to be volatile or in danger of going out of control at the drop of a curtain. In fact, successful method acting requires serious self-discipline. Learning The Method involves a great deal of time, effort and concentration in order to be able to call up the right emotions at the right moment. Through this learning process, method actors become truly in control of themselves and their emotions in a way most regular actors will never achieve, giving them an advantage both as performers and in their overall work ethic.
Willingness to sacrifice their ego
Actors can have a reputation for being egotistical, but the truly great performers don’t worry about how they are perceived, only about the best way to play their characters with absolute truth. To lose yourself in a character like this, you have to be willing to put aside your own ego, no longer thinking about yourself and your self-image, but focusing purely on becoming your character.
Robert De Niro offers another great example here, with the extreme physical transformation he underwent for his role in Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear. De Niro completely changed his appearance, including building an impressively muscular physique, covering himself in tattoos and even having a dentist grind down his teeth. This level of dedication to really becoming his character resulted in an incredible performance that shows just what a dedicated method actor can achieve with the right training and attitude.
Are you ready to unlock your hidden acting potential? Register your interest in one of our industry-leading method acting classes today and find out how to make your ambitions of a rewarding professional acting career a reality. We are always happy to hear from prospective students, so if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
“The secret to moving passions in others is to be moved oneself”
Aristotle
We were reading recently about how Tom Hardy brought his real life experiences into his role as a troubled ex-marine-turned-cage fighter Tommy in the critically acclaimed film ‘Warrior. ’
“The action drama is a paean to redemption and the power of the human spirit, themes that resonate strongly with Hardy.”
At the time that he made ‘Warrior’, American critics were comparing Tom Hardy to a young Marlon Brando, one of the greatest ever method actors. The star of Bronson, Lawless, The Dark Knight Rises, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Inception and the forthcoming Mad Max remake has more life experience than most Hollywood actors to draw on when it comes to playing a character like Tommy.
With a history of drug and alcohol abuse, stealing, gun possession and jail time, he had a deep chest of experiences to channel into tortured ex-marine Tommy.
“I don’t need to discuss or work around the abuse that surrounds alcoholism and dysfunction in families who suffer from that disease because it’s something I can draw on from personal experience.”
Reading about how Tom Hardy connected with the sadder side of Tommy prompted us to think about how the power of bringing real life into character as actors.
Life comes first. What I see in the characters, I first try to see in life
Daniel Day Lewis, Method Actor
The Method is a technique allowing you to inspire yourself at will, in part, by reliving your own life experiences and channeling them through the character. It is the creative (re)experiencing of memory and experience on stage or screen.
“Experience makes the doors open”
Marion Cotillard, Backstage
This is the essence of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s ‘system’ which, we think, lends a greater and deeper truth and humanity to the character. In ‘Warrior’, the spellbinding action in the cage is only half of the story. The emotional and psychological turmoil in its central characters is the other.
Tom Hardy was absolutely believable and compelling as Tommy. He used the ‘affective memory’ method acting technique to create a character that was human and very much alive, not to mention the muscle bulk he put on for the role! Hardy’s ability to draw on poignant personal experiences and channel them is what makes him one of the leading method actors working in Hollywood today.
“The fight is within me, and I’ve been to all kinds of different rooms in my life”
Would you like to learn more about ‘the method’ and how it can help your acting career? Why not take a look at our range of acting courses? Alternatively, why not read my book?
“films don’t begin only when the camera starts rolling”
Most headlines you read about Daniel Day-Lewis, will talk about the “madness” of his method. Is it “madness” or a unique and brilliant brand of method acting that has brought his widespread and universal acclaim?
Despite only having made a dozen films in his career, he remains the only actor ever to win 3 Best Actor Academy Awards. There may be madness in his method, but it sure is working for him!
Daniel Day Lewis’s Unique Method
Day Lewis famously spent the entire shoot of Oscar-winning My Left Foot (1989) in a wheelchair to get into character as cerebral palsy-sufferer Christy Brown. For Last Of The Mohicans (1992), he lived in the woods and learned how to track, kill and skin wild animals. To prepare for In the Name Of The Father (1993), in which he played Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four, he had himself incarcerated over night and mistreated by the guards. For The Unbearable Likeness Of Being (1988)he took it upon himself to learn Czech, despite the script being in English.
The stories of Daniel Day Lewis’ unique method are well known and very well documented. The man only makes a film every couple of years, and so the story of his preparation for a role is often as talked about as the role itself!
He shuns the spotlight, and is visibly uncomfortable discussing his roles. His reclusiveness creates a level of mystique and intrigue around his process.
“You move very quickly from self-consciousness to a place where you are no longer aware of the decisions you are making, of the life that is taking shape. And that’s how it has to be, because self-consciousness is death in front of the camera.”
While Day Lewis’s method acting has earned him multiple gongs, his real achievement is creating characters that are completely believable and authentic. Daniel Day Lewis doesn’t play the character. He is the character.
“He believes so fervently that he is the character he is playing that audiences are swept along with him.”
In Lincoln (2012)for example, Day-Lewis created a voice and persona for a real historical figure. Given that Abraham Lincoln died in 1865, there are no audio or video recordings of the Civil War-era President. Day-Lewis employed the best of his method techniques to get inside the head of a character he knew little about, to create the voice and character was saw on the screen.
The result won him his third Best Actor Oscar.
While the method that we teach is less about extreme measures, and more effective techniques to channel the character you are playing, Daniel Day Lewis is certainly a fine example of the proven success of the method.
Would you like to train in method acting? Get in touch today to find out more about our courses.