Megan Sullivan, Harlee Buford, & Nina Lu: Method Acting

 Method Acting 

    As Dyer explains, “Method acting privileges emotional meaning over all other aspects of character (such as social behaviour and 'intellectual physiognomy'), but where melodrama returns emotions to moral categories, the Method roots them in broadly understood psychoanalytic categories” (141). Method acting uses an actor’s own emotional or traumatic life experiences to fuel a certain level of sadness, anger, happiness, or another emotion, for a particular role. Method actors “live” in their character for an extended period of time, often by not breaking character outside of scenes, mimicking a certain dialect or vernacular, dressing as their character would, dying their hair or changing a makeup style to further transform into their character, etc. Essentially, the method actor becomes their character, foregoing their identity for an unknown period of time. 

Dyer adds that “the Method constructs a character in terms of her/his unconscious and/or inescapable psychological makeup” (141). As described above, the emotional intensity method actors use from their past experiences is laced with unconscious emotions or lasting effects, adding more depth to their role. Likewise, The Method (referring to a psychological or therapeutic method) could be used to show any feeling or state of mind. However, it is commonly used to show negative emotions such as feeling upset, repression, anger, or anxiety. This is in part because people thought that these feelings were more real and true in comparison to stable emotional states and open expression. Despite the potential of portraying “real feelings,” method acting is extremely taxing on the actors because it often requires actors to tap into deep, traumatic emotions and experiences to portray the character authentically. 

Links to examples of the Method:

https://youtu.be/z9ofwr4y7H4?si=p6xdQG9hkvCaeiyT

In this example, the narrator walks us through an exercise that consists of noticing every detail and being hyper-aware of every sensation as we drink a cup of coffee. Then we’re expected to proceed by drinking an “imaginary” cup of coffee and trying to remember all of the sensations and details from the real cup.

This exercise touches upon an aspect of Method acting– connecting past experiences to the present by continuing to “live” in the past to connect with those real sensations and emotions an actor has experienced before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffgvc-ztf5c 

In this interview with Austin Butler, he talks about how he hasn’t been able to “get rid” of the “Elvis” accent that he acquired after acting as that character for the Elvis film. What’s intriguing about how Bulter describes this phenomenon is that he claims the change in his voice is also due to the result of vocal chord damage from singing so much, creating a distinct raspiness that people associate with Elvis’ voice. Butler demonstrates two aspects of method acting– the aspect of living with the character for an extended period of time outside of the role, and the aspect of  foregoing the actor’s own identity in favor of the character they’re playing. Butler’s description of his voice changing is seen as almost a sacrifice that he’s making for the role, a positive interpretation of method acting. The negative interpretation of method acting as a society would be to frame the method in a “insane” light, for example, when Jared Leto sent used condoms to his co-stars in Suicide Squad and got negative backlash for it. 

3:50 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUBd6lJdEI 

Leonardo DiCaprio speaks to his experience with method acting on the film The Revenant.