Actors usually have to undertake challenging roles and have to portray difficult characters. These characters are sometimes so different from the actors’ personalities that it becomes an enormous task for the actor to perform a character. Thus, the actors resort to different techniques to make their characters as realistic as possible.
The methods involved make actors rehearse like the character. Actors use their own emotions and trauma to channel the characters’ motivation. While method acting works for many actors, sometimes it leads to actors losing themselves in a character. There are many examples where the actors got so involved in their character’s mindsets that they ultimately lost their minds, some even needed psychiatric help for their recovery. Let’s look at some actors who completely absorbed their character in themselves.
Related: “No Longer A Craft And A Job”: Hollywood Actors On Why Method Acting Is Problematic
9 Actors Who Got Lost In Their Characters
9. Kate Winslet In ‘The Reader‘
The role of a Nazi camp worker in the 2008 movie ‘The Reader’ was played by Kate Winslet. She had to undergo a long process to become Hannah Schmitz. She prepared for two months for the role and had to learn the German dialect and life during the Holocaust.
Winslet did a lot of reading on the Holocaust and on the SS guards and memorized the entire book ‘The Reader’ on which the movie is based. She spent hours with illiterate people and became like them. For the entire filming duration, she was an illiterate camp worker Hannah Schmitz.
After the filming of the movie ended, she found it very difficult to shake the character off. About her experience from the film, she says, “I sort of walked away like some car crash victim who somehow hadn’t been hurt on the outside, but I felt like I couldn’t speak [about it]. It was truly overwhelming. I really went somewhere. I was in some kind of a trance.
Also Read: Top 25 Actors Who Are Chaotic In Real Life
8. Adrian Brody In ‘The Pianist’
The role of pianist Władysław Szpilman in the movie ‘The Pianist’ was played by Adrian Brody. He lived as the character for almost half a year and lost weight to look exactly like Szpilman. He wanted to have the true depiction of the pianist who is stuck in a ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. Brody went to great lengths to replicate Szpilman, including giving up his flat, smartphone, and the majority of his valuables.
Brody also picked up the piano and practiced on it for more than four hours every day. The 29-year-old was the youngest person to get the Oscar Award for Best Actor for this role, so one could say the hard work paid off. He also mentioned how difficult it was for him to assimilate back into his real life after the filming ended.
7. Leonardo DiCaprio In ‘The Revenant’
The role which finally gave Leonardo DiCaprio an Oscar was difficult at best and grueling at worst. DiCaprio played the role of Hugh Glass who is left to survive in extreme conditions. The actor, who is vegan, had to eat raw bison liver as a part of filming the movie. He lived as an 1800s frontiersman and even lived inside an animal carcass to become like the character.
The production time for this movie was particularly increased since the filmmaker insisted on shooting it chronologically and exclusively using natural light for maximum authenticity. This even lead to hypothermia for Leonardo but he didn’t quit and filmed the movie. He later confessed how the role was hard on his life and that it was an intense shoot.
6. Lady Gaga In ‘House of Gucci’
The songstress played the character of Patrizia Reggiani, wife of Maurizio Gucci, the heir to the fashion house of Gucci. She had to put on an Italian accent for the role and she had it for nine months. Throughout the filming, she also drew on her own past traumas to the point that her own experiences started to blend with those of her character.
Gaga said about her role, “It is three years since I started working on it and I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as her (Reggiani) for a year and a half.” Even the director of the movie, Ridley Scott was concerned about Gaga. When the filming was finished, she said she needed to have a psychiatric nurse with her. After the filming ended and Gaga went on a walk, she still felt as if she was Patrizia and was on a movie set.
Also Read: “It’s Bullsh*t”- Mads Mikkelsen Reveals He Is Not A Fan Of Method Acting
5. Joaquin Phoenix In ‘Joker‘
The role of Arthur Fleck or Joker in the film ‘Joker’ based on the DC comics character was played by Joaquin Phoenix. The actor had to lose almost 52 pounds to get in shape and look like the Joker. He began to think erratically due to his obsession with his weight and almost lost his mind while portraying the Joker.
Phoenix even performed the stunts required for the movie and even got beat up for a scene involving his accident with a car. He confessed that the role got to his head and he behaved maniacally at times for the role. He also channeled his inner emotions and trauma to depict the trauma of the character.
4. Jared Leto In ‘Dallas Buyers Club‘
For the movie ‘Dallas Buyers Club’, Jared Leto had to portray a transgender woman named Rayon. To play Rayon, he underwent many physical changes like shaving off his eyebrows, losing 30 pounds, and also waxed his entire body. He worked with Trans people to get the role as accurate as possible. The director of the movie also remarked how he doesn’t know the real Leto.
Director Jean-Marc Vallée stated, “I don’t know Leto. Jared never showed me, Jared.” He was so lost in the character that he was no longer himself. Leto also had a similar approach during the filming of Suicide Squad and became ‘Mistah J’. He also sent his fellow cast dead pigs and live rats.
3. Christian Bale In ‘The Machinist‘
The actor Christian Bale has over time delivered many performances where it’s difficult to separate the actor from the character. One such performance where the actor completely became his character was in the movie The Machinist. He played the role of an insomniac who goes out of control after a chain of mysterious events happen in his life.
Bale had to lose 62 pounds for the role and he became thin and emaciated and became his character. He got into character and only ate an apple and a can of tuna to lose weight. He was in such a poor state that it looked as if he would die. The role almost took his life and he had to gain back the weight after filming to become healthy.
2. Heath Ledger In ‘The Dark Knight’
One of the most authentic portrayals of the character Joker was portrayed by the late actor Heath Ledger. In one of the saddest and most heartbreaking instances of method acting gone wrong, Ledger became so occupied with this role that no one could separate Ledger from the Joker. To prepare for the role he lived in a motel for a month and shut himself from the outer world. During this time, he developed his voice and personality to match that of the Joker.
Ledger even maintained a diary wherein he wrote as the Joker. The role impacted him so much that his insomnia and substance abuse issues were heightened due to filming and acting as the character. He died after the filming in 2008 and was posthumously awarded the Oscar for his mind-bending portrayal of the unstable villain.
1. Daniel Day-Lewis For Many Films
Considered the best example of a method acting actor, Daniel Day-Lewis has absorbed each and every character that he has played. He is a very selective actor and has only starred in six movies since 1998. He is known for his intense preparation before every role.
Day-Lewis recruited circus artists to teach him how to throw knives for his role as William “Bill the Butcher” in Martin Scorsese’s historical film ‘Gangs of New York‘ released in 2002. He insisted on maintaining his New York accent and persona throughout the filming and refused to wear a warmer coat to match his character.
For the 1989 film ‘My Left Foot‘, he had to play a patient with cerebral palsy and he never once broke character for the entire filming schedule. He even had to be spoonfed all his meals to maintain character.
In the movie ‘The Last of the Mohicans‘, he lived in the forest and only ate whatever he hunted or captured and even built a canoe himself. The way he absorbed each character seemed like a trance and one could never break him. He eventually quit acting in 2017 after he found the entire process very draining physically and emotionally.
Also Read: Sony Reveals Heath Ledger Could Have Been The Spider-Man In Original 2002 Film
