“That guy’s process is clearly working”: Matt Damon names the actor who mastered the method
Method acting isn’t for everyone, but even though Matt Damon has never been concerned with immersing himself fully into character for the sake of performance, he’s worked with many stars who have.
It’s become something of a contentious talking point among the acting community, with just as many swearing by the method as there are those willing to decry it. If anything, the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of Marlon Brando, who ushered in its popularity when he forever changed the face of screen acting.
The method may not be for everyone, but it’s hard to deny that it works under the right circumstances. Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, and many other Academy Award-winning greats have completely dedicated themselves to their roles to block out the external noise and focus solely on their craft, making the results hard to argue with.
On the other side of the coin dwell people like Jared Leto, who ended up being widely mocked for the exorbitant lengths he’d go to for reasons that only made sense to him. Damon has been a household name for over a quarter of a century without contemplating devotion to the method, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect the folks who do it best.
It goes without saying that Christian Bale is one of the most famed practitioners, and nobody can claim that he isn’t one of his generation’s finest talents. He’d rather not have the lion’s share of the focus go towards his drastic transformations, but it’s part of the deal for any A-lister who does it with such regularity.
The pair worked together on James Mangold’s biographical racing drama Ford v Ferrari, and when Damon was passing judgment on method acting as a whole and clarifying that Bale is more than capable of holding conversations as himself when the cameras aren’t rolling, he called him the modern benchmark.
“Christian is a good example of somebody who’ll stay in the voice and the physicality of the character for the entire time,” Damon told Conan O’Brien, but at the end of the day, he’s never under the impression he’s doing anything other than making a movie where he’s obligated to show up at a certain time and do the job he was required to do, regardless of his mindset when the director calls action.
“That’s what works for him,” the star admitted. “And that guy’s process is clearly working. It’s just kind of a practical thing for him.” Films would be a lot less entertaining if every actor approached every part in the exact same way, and while Damon may not be a believer in the method, he’s right in saying it’s worked wonders for Bale.
