“It’s utter wankery”: five actors who despise method acting
There are countless ways for any actor to approach a performance, but one of the most contentious continues to be the subscription to the method model.
Ever since Marlon Brando blazed that trail 70 years ago, each new crop of future stars has at least a handful among their number who refuse to do anything other than wade into the treacherous waters of the method in order to give their best work or at least their idealised version of it.
It’s not something that delivers nothing but unmitigated disasters, though, but for every Joaquin Phoenix out there who uses it to burnish their reputation as a modern great, there’s a Jared Leto lurking in the background like the Wario to his Mario.
History has shown that method acting is far from obligatory in carving out a career peppered with awards, acclaim, accolades, and seminal performances, and the following five all openly rebelled against it while displaying that it’s hardly a requisite for success.
Five actors who hate method acting:
5. Mads Mikkelsen
Having thrived in independent film, European cinema, and Hollywood blockbusters, Mads Mikkelsen has embodied an array of different characters, from drunkards and psychopaths to cannibals and sorcerers, without having to send himself down the method rabbit hole.
His filmography makes it patently clear he knows how to mine characters for their depth, richness, and emotional complexities, but he didn’t need to dedicate himself completely to the role to make it happen. In fact, he thinks the method is little more than ego-stroking.
Succinctly describing it as “bullshit”, the actor even asked a pointed question that calls the whole viability of the method into question. “What if it’s a shit film,” he mused. “What do you think you achieved?” The answer is the square root of sod all, which in that respect makes it utterly pointless.
4. Toni Collette
Regarded as one of her generation’s finest talents, Toni Collette has been a chameleonic presence on-screen for decades, earning nominations from the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Baftas, Primetime Emmys, and Tonys along the way.
She’s played a number of ferocious and fully-formed characters that required incredible performances to bring to life, none of which required the method. “I think that is actually total bullshit,” she suggested in a recurring theme among the anti-method crowd. “I mean, it’s utter wankery.”
Blasting it as “a bit cheap and somewhat of a betrayal” of the acting process, Colette finds that any actor who needs to bring their personal baggage into a professional setting to aid and enhance their performance is overlooking the importance of the fundamentals.
3. Anthony Hopkins
The proud winner of two Oscars and with a storied stage and screen career spanning seven decades, Anthony Hopkins has evolved from a Laurence Olivier protege into an iconic elder statesman of the silver screen without ever embracing the method.
Referring to it as “a lot of crap”, Hopkins labelled its practitioners as “a pain in the ass”, and he’s been around enough method actors in his time to see the downsides. “Who the hell wants to be with some miserable grump because he wants to get his performance right, so you have to call him this or call him that?” he queried. Clearly not him, anyway.
He’s never been a subscriber, and if anything, his view on the method has only soured over time after placing him in close proximity to so many performers who utilised the technique and ended up doing nothing but irritating him.
2. Brian Cox
There doesn’t seem to be many things Brian Cox is willing to lavish with praise, but having been up close and personal with Jeremy Strong for the duration of Succession, his stance on the method was hardly going to be softened.
Referring to his co-star and on-screen son’s preferred habit of getting into character as “fucking annoying”, Cox is of the opinion that thanks to the massive shadow cast over the profession by Brando, the method has evolved into much more of a Stateside concern.
That’s the eloquent way of putting it, at least, seeing as Cox opted to bluntly anoint it as “American shit”, where the need to “have a religious experience every time you play a part” left him scratching his head, wondering what the point is supposed to be.
1. John Cassavetes
An accomplished actor and director who was able to witness the method from either side of the divide, John Cassavetes was under no allusions as to which section of the fence he was always going to stand on.
The star and filmmaker saw it as “more a form of psychotherapy than of acting”, and from his point of view as an icon in two different disciplines, such immersion in a character robbed the job of its spontaneity and sense of freedom.
For Cassavetes, the method was a shortcut, a thinly veiled display of narcissism, and more than capable of bringing out terrible performances when the actors became so deeply invested in what they were trying to achieve there was no way for them to alter their approach even when it was failing.
