Method acting is widely celebrated in the spectacle of cinema; however, it does surpass the actor’s extent of mortality, making them akin to harmful effects but while earning them a brilliant shade of Oscar. Here is a list of six celebrities that took their method acting way too far.
Christian Bale in The Machinist
“I came to work one day… and I heard ‘pssst…Michael!’ from behind one of the cabanas. And I went over, and it was Chris. And he said, ‘Can you look at this?’ And he turned and dropped his overalls, which he was naked under… and the muscles in his ass had literally dropped out of the sockets of his hips… I said, ‘You’ve gone beyond body fat, and now you’re into actual muscle tissue and things are being affected,” Bale’s co-star Michael Ironside stated, after the latter’s iconic method acting in The Machinist. For weeks before production started, Bale ate nothing but an apple and a tin of tuna every day. Christian Bale has rightfully established himself as Hollywood’s uncontested emperor of transformations, both in terms of style and content, thanks to this film and others.
Adrien Brody in The Pianist
In light of Adrien Brody’s preparation and research for his Oscar-winning performance in Roman Polanski’s 2002 picture The Pianist. In addition to devoting hours to learning how to play Chopin on the piano, Brody deliberately lost thirty pounds from his already slender frame to represent Polish Jew Wladyslaw Szpilman, a pianist who spent the Holocaust in Warsaw, which had been methodically cleared of its Jewish population, hiding from the Nazis and almost starving in the process. To be able to empathise with Szpilman’s sense of destitution, Brody briefly gave up his car and flat in order to prepare for the role.
Jamie Dornan in The Fall
This one is my biggest hear-me-out. Actor Jamie Dornan, who starred in Fifty Shades of Grey , has acknowledged that, to get ready for playing a serial killer in The Fall, he stalked a woman on the London tube. In an interview with the LA Times, Dornan—who plays serial killer Paul Spector in The Fall—discussed the questionable method acting he employed to inhabit the character’s brain better. He asked, “Can we get arrested for this? Hold on … this is a really bad reveal: I, like, followed a woman off the train one day to see what it felt like to pursue someone like that.” (Perhaps this was his most controversial hear-me-out.)
Nicolas Cage in Birdy
I’d never get one’s obsession with ruining body parts for a film. For the 1984 movie “Birdy”, Cage revealed to Vanity Fair that he had extracted his baby teeth without the use of anaesthesia. However, at that time, “they hadn’t grown in yet, so when I did ‘Moonstruck’, you still see a gaping hole.” He is a figure who is both brutal and compassionate. Cage’s lost tooth, coupled with Johnny’s wooden hand, was the ideal addition to his unique position in “Moonstruck”. In “Birdy”, Nicolas Cage aimed to connect his character’s wartime experiences with the physical suffering of losing his teeth. After being hurt by an explosive bomb, his character Al returns and has to go about his everyday life with a fully bandaged face. In order to comprehend how Vietnam soldiers were frequently shunned and denigrated by society, Cage really kept his head in the bandages for five weeks, even sleeping in them.
Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse
I personally love fifty shades of Pattinson; this time he passed out drunk for his role in The Lighthouse. Although the statement “sitting on the floor growling and licking up puddles of mud” may sound metaphorical, Esquire points out that Pattinson actually engaged in this behaviour on the set to fully inhabit the role. Pattinson accepted the drinking habit of his character as well. The two characters are frequently shown in the movie getting wasted on paraffin. Pattinson claimed to Esquire that he practically passed out while performing these scenes because he was so inebriated. “[I was] basically unconscious the whole time. It was crazy,” Pattinson said. “I spent so much time making myself throw up. Pissing my pants. It’s the most revolting thing. I don’t know, maybe it’s really annoying.”
Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour
Oldman’s commitment to the role was admirable; over a 58-day shoot, he spent over 200 hours in the makeup chair to become the cigarette-choking PM. As Churchill, Oldman actually smoked so many cigars that it ultimately had a very negative impact. Oldman told The Hollywood Reporter, “I got serious nicotine poisoning. You’d have a cigar that was three-quarters smoked, and you’d light it up, and then over the course of a couple of takes, it would go down, and then the prop man would replenish me with a new cigar – we were doing that for 10 or 12 takes a scene.”
