Method acting is often treated as some dangerous, mysterious force. The media is enthralled by it, awards shows are quick to slobber over it, and actors either scoff at it or swear it’s the key to their success. Any way you spin it, though, it’s become a surefire way for actors to gain gravitas, and its modern iteration has become more about ego and marketing than good performances. Leonardo DiCaprio ate raw meat, slept inside an animal carcass, and waded across freezing rivers to get into character—he’s a serious actor! Give him an Oscar!

The technique originated with Russian theatrical realist Konstantin Stanislavski at the beginning of the 20th century, who encouraged actors to use emotional memory to create more realistic performances. Lee Strasberg, a friend and colleague of Stanislavski’s, developed it further in the 1920s, advocating for total immersion: the actor does not play the character so much as become the character.

“To me, method acting just means fully immersing your body and mind into the character,” says Sarah Katherine Lawless ‘22, a musical theatre major at Boston Conservatory. “I’ve used hints of method acting … I’ve incorporated music, things that a character would wear, the way they would communicate, into my daily life, but I’ve never gone that far.”

The world loves a story of an actor gone “too far” down the rabbit hole of their character’s psyche. Christian Bale’s excessive and troubling weight loss, Shia LaBeouf and Nicolas Cage’s self-mutilations—these stunts are often more memorable than the roles themselves. And, of course, the lengths Heath Ledger took to prepare for the role of the Joker have become legend: he locked himself in a hotel room for weeks, kept a diary in which he wrote daily entries as the Joker, and routinely deprived himself of sleep.

“I think it can become dangerous when you don’t have a divide between yourself and the character,” Lawless says. “It’s important to be able to bring yourself to a character, so you can’t completely lose who you are.”

While Ledger and many other method actors focus on internal reflection, some seem to feel that turning outward is the best way to give a stellar performance. In preparation for his own turn as the Joker, Jared Leto infamously gifted the cast of Suicide Squad a litany of horrible items, including a used condom, a dead pig, anal beads, and a live rat. He also watched videos of brutal crimes online and insisted on being addressed only as “Mistah J” while on set.

Jared Leto certainly faced a difficult task in filling the larger-than-life shoes left behind by Ledger, so it’s not completely surprising that he went to such lengths to build a mythology around the movie and his character in particular. However, it is worth noting that he ended up giving a critically reviled 10-minute performance that was lost in the movie’s two-hour run time; ultimately, he spent more time on a marketing ploy than on giving a genuine performance.

“There’s this feeling of fake legitimacy, like if someone is a method actor, they’re a more serious actor and are more skilled,” says Gaby Avelino ‘22, a musical theatre major at Emerson College. “I think there’s something to be said for the fact that method acting is not taught in theatre class. The only representation I have of it are these stars talking about it. I feel like it perpetuates this whole celebrity culture of seeing someone as untouchable and all-knowing, when in reality, it’s just their ability to manipulate media and people’s perceptions of them.”

The technique has become entwined in Hollywood identity politics—it’s a way to make the art of acting resemble traditional forms of labor. By extension, this limits the kinds of actors that receive praise: there are very few women among the ranks of Hollywood’s acclaimed group of “method actors.” Modern method acting is certainly gendered, with the hype surrounding it depending on framing less drastic techniques as more feminine, and therefore inferior. This has had the effect of sidelining actors, especially women, who were able to find authenticity in their performances without removing body parts or terrorizing their castmates.

“If that’s all people are holding up, then that’s a very unhealthy thing. There are people who give performances of a lifetime without hurting themselves, so why aren’t we giving them the same amount of praise?” Lawless says. “You’re an actor—why do you have to go that far to feel something?”

The Madness in the Method