“It’s Method, darling” is a popular phrase among actors. You might hear it slurred by someone having a cheeky lunchtime drink while preparing to play a drunkard. But what does it really mean, and how can you incorporate it into your practice? Let’s take a closer look.
JUMP TO
Method acting is an advanced technique in which you fully inhabit the character you’re playing to create a sincere and emotionally expressive performance. Also known as the Method, the technique asks actors to draw on personal experiences and emotional memories to achieve authenticity, realism, and depth in their performances. It’s had a massive influence on what is considered good acting in Europe and America for the past 50 years.
Method acting was born out of a set of techniques called the System, developed by Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky in the early 20th century. Stanislavsky wrote three books setting out ways for actors to focus on the art of experiencing instead of the art of representation – revolutionary ideas for acting.
Before Stanislavsky, acting, widely speaking, was stiff and formal. Actors learned gestures that they would use to show which emotion the character was experiencing rather than trying to look like they were experiencing that emotion. It was a long way from acting as we know it today.
Stanislavsky wanted acting to be more natural, more real-looking, and less formal than it had been before. He believed that actors should appear to be experiencing real thoughts, desires, sensations, and emotions on stage.
A group of Russian actors from the Moscow Art Theatre toured the US in the 1920s. They brought Stanislavsky’s ideas with them, and Americans quickly adopted them. Three of those Americans, all members of the New York Group Theatre, would go on to become major players in defining the Method acting movement. Each produced their own version, leading to three schools of Method acting, all of which are still popular today.
Lee Strasberg – the psychological Method
Strasberg believed that just as you could physically prepare for a role, you could also prepare mentally. One of his ways of achieving this is known as affective memory: recovering emotions you’ve felt in your own life by recalling the experiences that led to them, then using the actual experience of those emotions on stage or screen to show the internal state of the character you’re playing. So, for example, if your character’s mother dies, you would recall a time when someone close to you died and try to experience it vividly until you feel and behave like someone whose mother has died.
A big criticism of Strasberg’s version of Method acting is that it blurs the boundary between the actor’s real life and that of the character. When you hear stories of Hollywood actors taking it too far – for example, Daniel Day-Lewis refusing to leave his character’s wheelchair in My Left Foot, meaning the crew had to carry him across the set every day and even feed him – this is because they are deep into Strasberg’s Method.
Stella Adler – the sociological Method
Stella Adler met Stanislavsky in Paris in 1934. After conversations with him, she developed his ideas into her version of Method acting, saying that he had rejected affective memory as a technique. Adler’s Method says that you should understand the given circumstances in a script and make your character seem real by imagining their circumstances are real. You should also analyse the script carefully to gain an understanding of the character’s motivations, situations, and relationships. If you understand the character’s life deeply enough, Adler believed, you can inhabit the character.
Critics of Adler’s Method point out that, while it’s not as emotionally draining as affective memory, it’s extremely mentally draining as it involves deep analysis of the script and research into everything from the character’s job to their environment and situation.
Sanford Meisner – the behavioural Method
Meisner’s version of Method acting, known as the Meisner technique, focuses on the behaviour of the actor matching that of the character they’re playing. By using improvisation and repetition and developing the physical characteristics of a character, the actor is able to go beyond their own ego and embody the character fully.
Critics of Meisner’s Method say it leads to a lack of understanding of the script. It can also take a long time to develop all the physical behaviours of a character and may require a long rehearsal process.
Kathy Hutchins/Fred Duval/Shutterstock
Of the three kinds of Method acting, Strasberg’s is the most popular today. Strasberg founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York in 1969 and has a campus in Los Angeles, too. The institute offers online courses from three to 12 weeks in length, with costs beginning at $350 for a four-week course called Method 101. Among the Strasberg Institute graduates are Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga.
The Stella Adler School of Acting also has a campus in New York and one in Los Angeles. It also offers online courses. Its Acting Technique 1: Foundation course involves eight online classes over four weeks, costing $350. Actors who studied at the Stella Adler School and are known for their Method acting include Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.
The Meisner technique is taught at New York’s Neighbourhood Playhouse – where Meisner himself once taught – and in Los Angeles at The Sanford Meisner Centre. Neither of these locations offer online courses, but, as with the other versions of Method acting, there are plenty of other locations all over the world that offer training online and in-person on the Meisner technique. Method actors who studied at the Neighbourhood Playhouse include Jeff Goldblum and James Caan.
If you want to study Method acting in person in the UK, you could try the StandBy Method Acting Studio, which offers a course recommended by the actor Stephen Graham, or the highly respected Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), which offers a workshop on Stanislavsky's technique and another on Meisner's.
Here are five simple techniques you can start rehearsing with right now to bring the depth and realism of Method acting to your performance.
Relaxation
Strasberg believed that in order to embody another person, you first have to release any tension stored in your own body, becoming a blank slate physically so that you can take on the character’s physicality. For this reason, relaxation techniques are fundamental to Method acting. Try breathing exercises, such as box breathing, or focusing on each part of the body in turn, tensing it and then relaxing it to produce a state of physical calm.
Sense memory
This is a version of affective memory where you draw on the memory of firsthand experiences to create genuine emotional responses. When De Niro prepared for his role in Taxi Driver, he drove taxis around New York in 12-hour shifts, giving himself a mental bank of sensory experiences he could draw on when acting. What sense memories can you create to inform the way you play your role?
The private moment
To remove the ego from the performance and have the character come across as a real, living person, this exercise has you, as your character, do something in public that you would never normally do in front of other people. Dancing alone, picking your nose, examining your features closely in a mirror – all these actions could transform your sense of inhibition and allow you to open yourself to the role more effectively. Usually, you practise in the privacy of your own home and then repeat the exercise in the classroom. If you don’t have a classroom, simply repeat the exercise in any public place, such as in a park or on the bus. Try to re-create the private moment without any sense of embarrassment about who might be watching, but remember that the action should be in keeping with the character you're playing. What would be embarrassing for them to do in public? This kind of introspection can help you focus on the character’s internal world rather than your own ego and the audience.
Justification
During rehearsals, actors are often asked to justify what they’re doing, whether sitting still, moving around, forming facial expressions, or anything else. The actor needs to be able to explain why the character is doing what they’re doing. This leads to a deeper understanding of the character and, it is argued, a more authentic performance. You don’t need a director to challenge you, either. Just stop at random moments in your rehearsal and ask yourself, “Why is my character doing this?” This is where we get the famous Method acting question: “What’s my motivation?”
Object focus
Characters always want something, whether it’s physical, such as a glass of water, or mental, such as love. Whatever the character wants can be their object, and you can practise focusing your whole performance, physically and mentally, on that object. In this way, you become the character more and stay an actor playing a character less.