James Stewart’s most dangerous performance: “The method people wouldn’t have approved”
Whether he was playing an obsessive wheelchair-bound sleuth or a reporter stuck in a love triangle, James Stewart commanded the screen with effortless charm every time. Without fail, he impressed with his striking presence and everyman sensibility, appearing in many classic films until lending his voice to the animated film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West for his final role.
Stewart was an ideal figure of masculinity, attracting many audiences with his approachable nature, even if his characters sometimes teetered on the edge of being virtuous. He was incredibly versatile, and he didn’t feel the need to resort to method acting or any other intense ways of getting into character – it all seemed to come incredibly natural to the actor.
He graced the screen in incredible movies like North By Northwest, Rear Window, Vertigo, and Rope – all directed by Alfred Hitchcock – while also earning acclaim for movies like It’s A Wonderful Life, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Harvey.
However, there were times when Stewart did struggle in certain roles, and for his performance in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there was a scene in which he resorted to desperate – and rather dangerous – methods.
Directed by Frank Capra, Stewart starred alongside Jean Arthur and Claude Rains, and the film became known as one of the greatest of all time. He played Jefferson Smith, who, after replacing a recently deceased United States senator, finds himself thrown into a world of political corruption.
Stewart was known for his signature voice, and in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the filibuster scene – which required him to deliver his lines rather emotionally and with an unrestrained sensibility – received significant praise. However, the actor admitted that he had some help when it came to getting his voice ready for the scene, asking a doctor to apply a mercury solution to his throat so that it would irritate his voice.
The actor clearly wasn’t worried about the negative effects of consuming mercury, telling The New York Times, “I’m sure the Method people wouldn’t have approved of it, but I was in trouble. To this day I don’t know what happened to the doctor’s practice while he was down at the studio with me. I’d come in every once in a while and say: ‘Doc, you’ve got to do something. It’s getting better.’”
Stewart’s decision to take a shortcut to get his desired effect might be frowned upon by some, but he did what he felt he had to do to achieve greatness, even if it meant putting himself in danger. The actor’s voice was one of his star attributes – one that is so recognisable that even Calm, a meditation and relaxation app, used AI to recreate Stewart’s voice to tell listeners a bedtime story in 2023.
“I never thought about it, not even in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Stewart explained in relation to his iconic voice. While he was known for his signature pipes, it seems that possessing such a voice was just second nature to him, and he wasn’t afraid of potentially damaging them with mercury to achieve cinematic excellence.
