5 Famous Method Actors Who Went to Insane Lengths to Become Their Characters
Method actors take over the mentality of their characters entirely and don’t change back until the camera stops rolling. It’s a tough practice followed by few people, but these five are probably the most famous method actors in the world.
5. Jared Leto
While many people still see Jared Lero only as the leader of Thirty Seconds to Mars, he’s an actor with quite a resume — and a reverent follower of method acting.
From losing and gaining dangerous amounts of weight for his movies and ending up in a wheelchair for it to separating from the rest of the cast and going Joker on them, Leto dives head-on into the world of his character and refuses to resurface.
4. Daniel Day-Lewis
Throughout his entire four-decade-long career, Day-Lewis had only 30 roles: he was very particular about choosing the characters he’d have to fully embrace into himself.
To truly become his character, Daniel Day-Lewis could spend months learning entirely new skills to perfection. The actor’s most phenomenal feats involve learning to speak Czech on a native level and living in the wilds to become a true hunter.
3. Jim Carrey
After taking Hollywood’s comedy genre by storm, Jim Carrey indulged himself in more complex dramatic projects, revealing his unmatched talent and dedication.
Carrey is a pretty hardcore method actor, too: for instance, when he played Andy Kaufman, he embraced the comedian’s persona even behind the scenes, only replying to “Andy” and behaving in the most Kaufman-like unpredictable ways.
Despite having been in the industry for years, Joaquin Phoenix truly rose to fame after his phenomenal performance as Joker where he famously went full-method.
To truly understand and become his character, Phoenix was studying personality disorders, mental health, choreography, and many other things; he developed his own dancing style, lost a scary amount of weight, and behaved like Joker himself.
For the general public, Christian Bale is the embodiment of method acting — and for a good reason since the method technique is second nature to this chameleon actor.
Christian Bale is widely known for his insane physical and mental transformations as the actor repeatedly lost and gained weight to the point of dying on both ends and tormented himself psychologically to capture the mentality of his darker characters.
