Many misconceptions exist about Method Acting: that it is ‘living as the character,’ immersing oneself in the life of the character, staying in character on and off the set, or becoming the character. While many actors have applied these ways of working when creating a role, it’s not necessary to follow these examples to be a practitioner of Method Acting.
What does Method Acting mean?
Method Acting is an approach to acting that incorporates both physical and psychological means. When working on or rehearsing a script the actor draws on material from their own life experience—memories, sensations, thoughts and feelings—and brings this material to the words and intentions of the writer, thus creating a lived authenticity to the character and the world of the play.
Method Acting was a reaction to a style of acting that was more concerned with effect and the outer representation of character. Method actors were searching for a lived experience in performance and this was achieved through investigation into the inner world and psychological make-up of the character, what made them tick, their drives and desires and how this impacted on their behaviour alongside detailed research into the text and the world of the play.
Who invented Method Acting?
The Method could not exist without Konstantin Stanislavski (1863–1938), a Russian actor, director and teacher who co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre with playwright and theatre director Vladimir Nemorovich-Danchenko.
They mounted productions by contemporary Russian playwrights Chekhov and Gorky.
Stanislavski was a great character actor and, frustrated with the ennui that came with repetition in performance, developed a System that would encourage the flow of impulses and feelings, thus keeping the creative process and the performance alive.
He was the originator of naturalistic acting and has been the main influence on how acting developed into the 20th century.
In 1923 the MAT toured the US where a production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters was shown in New York and seen by a young Lee Strasberg, an immigrant of Austrian-Polish Jewish parents, who was in love with theatre and acting.
He was enthralled by the actors’ performances in Stanislavski’s company, their rich inner life and dedication to their craft.
Strasberg went on to form the Group Theatre in 1931, a collective of actors and directors including Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner who staged plays with a political and social agenda.
Constantin Stanislavski. See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Actors Studio, New York. Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It was with the Group that Strasberg started to formulate his Method, taking Stanislavsky’s system in new directions of his own.
This continued with The Actors Studio, a place where actors could hone their craft and learn under the rigorous eye of Strasberg, and a training ground for many of the great stage and screen actors of the 20th century: Rod Steiger, Karl Malden, Al Pacino, Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman, Geraldine Page and Marilyn Monroe.
The Actors Studio still exists today.
Other great acting teachers that emerged from the Group Theatre were Sanford Meisner and Stella Adler (the only one who actually spent time with Stanislavski). They created their own unique acting methodologies:
— Meisner’s repetition exercise that connects acting partners, working off live impulses and responses, and Adler’s system that puts the emphasis on the given circumstances supplied by the text, encouraging actors to imagine themselves in the world of the play. She believed that growth as an actor and growth as a human are synonymous.
Examples of Method Acting
The performances often cited as examples of the Method are where the actor has ‘lived’ as the character.
Daniel Day Lewis for instance is painstaking in his desire to immerse himself in the character. See this extract on 10 times Daniel Day-Lewis took Method Acting to the extreme.
Robert de Niro, for his role in Raging Bull, learnt to box, training with the subject of the film Jake LaMotta, and also gained 70 pounds to portray LaMotta in his older years.
Lady Gaga also used the immersive ‘method’ approach when working on Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci, spending nine and a half months living in character.
Daniel Day Lewis won the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Lincoln in this film.
There will be many actors who do not take these extreme steps and yet still may be using many of the following techniques of Method Acting to enliven and deepen their performances.
Method Acting Exercises
Relaxation
Lie on the floor or sit in a chair. Tense and then relax every part of your body from toes upwards.
Release facial muscles and tongue and jaw
Let yourself be limp
Release sound on the out breath as a long Ahhhhh.Why?
When relaxed, the actor has greater access to emotion and memory. It is difficult to work from tension.
Endowment Exercise
Observe how you really drink a hot cup of tea or coffee, paying attention to the sensations and their impact on your physicality and behaviours
Repeat the action with a substitute, e.g. cold water, recreating the specific detailed behaviours so an audience would see you doing the real thing.Why?
Dealing with objects which cannot have total reality because you cannot use them in a fictional world, e.g. because they are dangerous, extreme or hazardous.
Sense Memory Exercise
Remember a place you are familiar with (a park, a cafe, your childhood bedroom) or a physical sensation (a headache, nausea, sprained ankle).
Revisit or imagine yourself in that place or with that physical sensation, bringing all the sensations associated with it into your mind and body
Recreate the sense of that place in the studio, on stage or set.Why?
This exercise is for creating a strong, specific ‘where’ or physical sensation for the scene you’re in.
Emotional Memory Exercise
Relax your body using steps above
Recall a memory where you had a strong emotional reaction
Sitting in your chair describe all that is happening around you as you relive that memory in the present tense, through your senses.
Through detailed sensory remembering of this memory you will hopefully be able to access the emotion and discover a trigger to that emotion.Why?
This exercise formulates a trigger moment which you can use in a scene when you need to find a strong emotion.
How can Method Acting help your performance?
Method acting teaches discipline, self awareness and the use of your life experience when working with scripts that brings truth and authenticity to your performances.
Study the Method at City Lit
Discover Method Acting. There are a number of classes at City Lit where you can learn more about the Method and put the exercises into practice.
