Is Method Acting Here to Stay?

From inserting contacts to blur his vision so he can wear prescription glasses to becoming highly skilled at table tennis, Timothée Chalamet is reportedly beginning to physically and psychologically morph into his next character, Marty Reisman, for his upcoming film, Marty Supreme. 

While the film chronicles the life of Reisman, a table tennis prodigy, and his rise to fame, Chalamet is said to have been training himself for this film for the past seven years, obsessively travelling with ping-pong tables from set to set to hone his skills and practice tirelessly. These intense forms of dedication to embodying a character’s reality are known as elements of method acting. 

At its core, method acting is about complete immersion in the character’s inner and outer worlds. For some actors, this means adopting the character’s habits, skills, lifestyle, behaviour, and geographical environment to depict the character as accurately as possible — with some going to extreme lengths and remaining in character off-set, navigating day-to-day life as the role to maintain emotional continuity. 

The technique is rooted in an acting system created by Russian theatre practitioner Stanislavsky. He stressed emotional honesty and psychological realism in performance, reacting against the overly emotive acting style popular at the time. His initial approach aimed to teach actors to access and genuinely experience their own emotions, so they could truly “feel” what their character was feeling, rather than just pretending or wearing a mask. It was later introduced to the US in the 1930s through institutions such as the Actors’ Studio in New York City, under the direction of Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. It has now become a defining element of cinema, with few Hollywood actors becoming synonymous with the technique. 

Method acting is clearly more than just memorizing lines from a script. It’s the pursuit of truly becoming the character for a realistic portrayal. Some notable examples include Heath Ledger isolating himself to embody the Joker’s mannerisms, Robert De Niro working as a licensed cab driver in New York City for his role in Taxi Driver, and Adrien Brody learned piano by practicing Chopin for hours on end and undergoing an extreme physical transformation for his role in The Pianist. 

The difference between traditional acting and method acting is clear. While classical acting focuses on technical skills and controlled performance, method acting prioritizes emotional authenticity by drawing on an actor’s personal experiences and psychological parallels to the character. Today, actors continue to adopt this approach (to varying degrees) with some leading talents keeping it alive. Although method acting has delivered award-winning performances, it’s not without its controversy. Actors have increasingly spoken out about how prolonged immersion can blur boundaries — periodically leading to burnout. 

Austin Butler, for his role in Elvis, immersed himself for years to master the proper accent and persona, so deeply that he found it difficult to drop after production. Despite earning an Academy Award nomination for his performance, Butler later acknowledged an effort to scale back such intense portrayals in subsequent roles because, after filming, he suffered extreme exhaustion and was hospitalized. 

Similarly, Jeremy Strong’s approach to his roles (often mistaken for method acting) has also sparked debate, especially recently in The Apprentice. Strong has mentioned that he prefers the term “identity diffusion” and rejects the label of “method actor” due to its misinterpretation in the media. But regardless of the exact terminology, his commitment is unmistakable. 

While polarizing, these approaches demonstrate the extent to which actors will deliver for the art of film. As the technique continues to evolve, these case studies offer insight into whether such extremes remain necessary (or healthy) in contemporary cinema. 

FEATURE IMAGE: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET, JOSH SAFDIE. PHOTO BY ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA, COURTESY OF A24. 

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