well this is a nice surprise, it's like when your mom says she'll have ice cream for you when you get home, and you get home and she has a sundae for you
Doesn't go into full detail about how mad as fuck Day-Lewis is... He ran into a forest naked for a week or however long it was to get in to a role and was found tripping hard on shrooms and sent to hospital... which he escaped from shortly afterwards.
Grey Fox lol I hadn't heard that, yet. But I did hear he spent his entire time through out The Crucible actually working full days in the fields like his character & dud not bathe for the ENTIRE time it took, first day until the last of filming! The end, when he & his "wife" are standing there talking for so long & hug, etc. it's the only thing I can think of. She should've received an Oscar for not gagging through that scene!
Y'know, it sounds crazy to non-actors, but at drama school/uni/wherever you do your training, it's drummed into you again and again and again that if you don't look genuine (and therefore the audience don't buy it) you've failed, so it's not that surprising how immersed some actors get... Stanislavski (possibly the most famous name in theatre and the creator of "method acting") would have all his actors live together when they were putting on a show, so they formed the bonds their characters would, and actively encouraged them to go out and have as many "life experiences" as possible because he believed that you couldn't truly portray something unless you knew exactly what it felt like to go through yourself. (I really hope this didn't all sound snobbish and pompous...)
Daniel Day Lewis: you left out the opportunity to illustrate said craziness (outside the scope of this video, perhaps) with the story of his breaking down in the middle of a stage production of Hamlet because, while playing Hamlet he saw his father's ghost. (Said father had died recently, and son was probably feeling some stress, but still....)
What about Katherine Hepburn doing 12 binders full of research to play Eleanor of Aquitane in "The Lion in Winter?" Of course she was sensational and won an Oscar for it.
I heard he lost weight, but that does not equal method acting. If he moved to an asylum for a couple months to get a grip on how a mentally-ill person acts....that would be method acting.
MrsScorpionette He ate an apple a day and lost a staggering amount of weight, to the point that no makeup was needed to actually make him look skeletal. That severe lack of calories caused some psychosis and health issues, much like what his character faced in the film. Christian Bale is known for going to extremes, and he at least merits an honourable mention on this list.
Mandy Cummins not really. there is a list I recall about extreme body changes actors underwent for a movie...and that's not one of them. Method acting does not consist only on dieting. On the other hand, if he started a vigilante career before filming Batman movies - that would make him worth-mentioning on that list!
The voiceover person for this video doesn't know anything about anything (outside of comic books). He just cobbles together any old shit based upon other people's research. A lot of what he says is debatable to say the least. For instance, I have NEVER heard that stuff about "The Seven Samurai". And to say such awfully unflattering things about Akira Kurosawa is downright horrible. Kurosawa wasn't "insane". Rather, he was meticulous. Kurosawa, prior to becoming a filmmaker, was an artist, which is why his films have such a striking visual quality. I also suspect what is said in the video isn't true, because you can see that many actors are wearing skin-wigs, instead of actually going for a samurai's tonsure. Other articles state that Toshiro Mifune remained in character all the time, but says nothing of the others. And I wouldn't call staying in costume for several week "insane", anyway, even if that's what they really did.
Noomi Rapace did it better than Rooney Mara in the original Swedish movie of The girl with the dragon Tattoo. Too bad that the better original still is unknown and didnt get a nomination for an Oscar
I remember in one of Henry Hill's interviews (yes the actual mobster not the actor Ray Liotta) he said he thought Robert DeNiro was insane in his preparation for playing Jimmy Burke/Conway. Imagine being called crazy by a drunken drugged up ex-mafia associate lol
Christian Bale: The Machinist Jared Leto: Dallas Buyers Club Natalie Portman: Black Swan Eddie Redmayne: The Theory of Everything David Belle: District 13 Not necessarily in terms of acting skill, but in the inherent insanity of what they went through
Viggo "lived" with his horse for "The Two Towers" because having a horse lie down next to you and then being ok with you grabbing its hair while standing up again takes a lot of trust. Too bad that silly scene wasnt even in the book and they should have kept the story more faithful.
Harpo Django Rose LoL awkward at first cause you never see that scene coming but boy did he handle his own in that sweat room or w.e and the gruesomeness just makes it A+
Honorable Mention to almost the entire cast of "Saving Private Ryan"? From what I understand, everyone except the titular Ryan (Matt Damon, I think?) was driven hard and treated like crap, like actual soldiers, while the odd man out was left well enough alone, adding that extra level of personal animosity come filming.
I've lways liked DDL's acceptance speech for his oscar for Lincoln where he thanks his wife for putting up with living with so many strange men over the years. You've gotta be a saint to put up with a method actor
Dustin Hoffman who stayed up for several days to be "authentic" for the torture scene. Where upon Laurence Olivier, in response to Hoffman's actions, told him "try acting"
i agree. didn't think of that one. he only spent 15 minutes in front of the screen and captured the film so completely. to prepare for such a role deserves a spot on the list.
Interesting fact: Heath ledger apparently talked with Jack Nicholson during his role as the joker. After his death reporters had actually asked Jack Nicholson if he thought immersing himself in the role like he did was what killed him or just the drugs got to him and Jack Nicholson simply said "I warned him he needed to be careful about it." The funny thing is it's hard to really tell if he means the drugs or the role.
While Mara did quite a bit of preparation for the Hollywood reprisal of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I was always more impressed with how Noomi Rapace played Lisbeth in the original. She did the same preparations, with the piercings and physical training.
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises (One of his best performances) - Mortensen did also very deep research about tattoos and in that diner story, tattoos are one part that made him so authentic. Heath Ledger - Dark Knight (His best performance)
I'm told that for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", Johnny Depp spent a weekend with Hunter S Thompson and ingested all kinds of substances. He also drove around in Thompson's car and had the author shave his head to mimic his baldness.
I'm pretty sure it has been proven that Heath Ledger's overdose didn't have to do with his role as the Joker. He was taking two different medications, but it was his doctor who mixed up the doses that caused him to overdose. He was a fantastic actor that will be missed.
As a german i had to check out Merryl Streep and was actually impressed. I know people who live here for more than 30 years who can't speak german as good as her
Yes. We fucking know Ledger didn't kill himself because of a movie role. It's a nice little glamorization, but he had been insomniac for months before he even started in the role.
Apparently had been suffering from a number of mental health problems and insomnia for years. He had been seeking help but nothing was really working. Although apparently a certain celeb was called before 911 because they had given him illegal drugs. But nothing can be proven.
excellent list. i love the inclusion of the more obscure films. i do think, however, that meryl streep should be number one. for sophie's choice alone, she learned 2 languages. learning to speak german with a polish accent pushes one into the top spot alone.
"What about Jared Leto and Christian Bale??? Bale got really skinny and then really fit!! And Leto sent a rat to Margot Robbie! Woah!" Okay, so, Bale is a good actor. A great actor, even. His efforts in The Machinist, and then not long after in Batman Begins, is legitimately incredible. Like, he worked hard, day in day out, for those two roles, and he deserves all the respect in the world for it. But that's a single example, and you can't get much deeper than it really. Bale could get an honourable mention, sure, but not much more than that. And Leto? Leto isn't a method actor who puts in diligent time and effort into becoming the character. Leto puts a bit of time into turning Leto into something a bit similar to the character he has to play. Beyond his work in Dallas Buyers, which was a very impressive piece of work by him with lots of respect done to the role to ensure it was portrayed well, Leto has rarely, if ever, fit the mould of true method acting and intensive work ethic like the people on this list. We can use a few things as major examples - the Joker we see and know in Suicide Squad, even in what was discussed in cut scenes, does not fit with what it was reported that he was doing on the set. He was doing insane things, but he wasn't doing Joker things. That's where Leto drops the ball.
Y U No... No wait, you ARE Adam! Oh Adam, where have you been? Those dulcit tones of sarcasm have been greatly missed. We keep getting stuck with weirdly high pitched geordies?!
Always said that if I was an actor I'd have been a method actor. I do it any time I take on a role for whatever. Playing D&D? I become that character. Dressing up for Halloween or other any other reason (Convention, Ren Faire, etc)? I become that person. Maybe I need to play a person that loves their job?
I would include both Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyer's Club and Christian Bale in The Mechanic to the insane amount of weight they both lost for those roles. I think they both had medical supervision but that was extreme.
Actually learning the piano at Virtuoso level would, on average, take around 19 years. Brody actually only learnt the Nocturne by Chopin and even then it weren't the full thing. For Chopins ballad in which he plays in front of the German officer, was a different pianist.
Heath Leger didn't just shut himself away. He locked himself in a hotel room for a month, not talking to anyone, reading and watching nothing but various batman source material. Supposedly the Killing Joke influenced his joker a lot.
Correction! "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo REMAKE". There were already 3 Swedish films in the series before the US made one. But otherwise a solid video and a very good list indeed.
What about Christian Bale for 'the machinist' , 'rescue dawn' etc and Leonardo DiCaprio for 'blood diamond' , 'the revenant' , 'what's eating Gilbert Grape' etc ???
How about Jim Carrey's portrayal of Andy Kaufman in "Man on the Moon" or Gloria Swanson's depiction of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" Perhaps they can be in your next list. :) Thanks!
I had expected Daniel Day Lewis having before learned of his commitment to a role. Was about him staying in character for Last of the Mohicans. The stench must have been mighty. Yes indeed "Every goddamn thing." But oh he is good. Was surprised to learn about Marlon Brando's immersion into his roles given the extreme width of the damn he later did not give about learning his roles. And oh gracious, Adam, I've had a low night, but you got me smiling to learn Forrest Whitaker learned to play accordion even though he did not need to play the thing in the film. God love him. "Mama's gotta squeeze box, Daddy never sleeps at night."
For "Marathon Man" Dustin Hoffman took up jogging and became obsessive about it. He stuck to a grueling running schedule and often would come on set reeking of sweat which annoyed the rest of the cast and crew. Co-star Sir Laurence Olivier once said to him there was another way actors can perform their roles "It's called acting" he said.
When Dustin Hoffman found out that Captain Hook in Peter Pan was based on a real person, he read biographies about that person just to make the movie "Hook"
Jared Leto did a lot of research for The Joker in Suicide Squad. He talked with psychopaths and said himself that he went down a dark path to become The Joker.
The problem is we didn't see enough of him in syicude squad so I walked away from the movie calling him Jared as opposed to when I walked away from Dark Knight and couldn't call Heath Ledger any other name than Joker. If I see more of him I might be convinced he did well. Harley was amazing though.
