7 method actors that went overboard

Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant

Leo should’ve probably snapped up his first Academy Award decades ago after his dreamy performance in Titanic – according to every teenage girl ever. It started as a strange internet meme, and then snowballed into something of an industry in-joke that Leo would never bag an Oscar despite churning out seminal performances year on year.

The Hollywood heartthrob would finally go on to secure the much-coveted prize in 2016 for his lead role in The Revenant after coming close with Django: Unchained and Shutter Island. In his older year’s Leo’s characters steadily became more and more unhinged and detached from his original pretty boy persona, but 1800s frontiersman Hugh Glass was as wild a role as we’d seen the 44-year-old play.

In order to give the best performance possible, DiCaprio fully threw himself into the mindset of an 18th century wildling. He regularly ate raw bison (despite being an avowed vegetarian), subjected himself to brutally cold temperatures, and slept inside hollowed animal carcasses throughout filming. His grimacing and pained grunting – and there was a frankly too much of it in the movie– was largely genuine.

Just the sight of him on the IMAX made my hotdog go cold.

Natalie Portman – Black Swan

If there was a Lifetime Achievement Award for creative immersion, Portman would be a worthy winner. The revered actress claims she ‘can’t’ be considered a method actress – despite being in the job from the tender age of 11 – but marrying the dance instructor for Aronofsky’s Black Swan and having two kids with him gives us good reason to plonk her in this list.

Not just that though. While prepping for the same film Portman spent over a year in a rigorous ballet program training 16-hours-a-day and losing a staggering 10kgs to look the part of the tortured ballerina Nina Sayers.

Portman suffered several injuries while perfecting her newfound talents, including a broken rib which kept her out of production for a short period. Amazingly, she performed several key dance scenes herself which made the final cut in 2010 despite having a master ballerina double on hand.

Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight

One of my favourite films of all time, one of my favourite roles of all time. What a character. What an actor.

Following Ledger’s untimely death in 2008, disturbing rumours emerged suggesting the Aussie’s step into the Joker’s purple loafers was the trigger moment that pushed him over the edge. It’s a belief held by many, but investigators are adamant he was sound of mind after filming had wrapped on The Dark Knight.

Fact and fiction aside, there’s no questioning Ledger’s commitment to the role. In order to bring the necessary gravitas to the volatile yet wily supervillain he coaxed his mind into thinking along the same twisted tangents, scribbling out daily dairy entries as the Caped Crusader’s arch-nemesis.

He was holed up in his London apartment for a whole month, often limiting himself to two hours sleep a night.

Ledger had always been one too go a little overboard though. While filming Brokeback Mountain he contorted his face to maintain Mar’s scrunched expression for the whole two months of shooting. He also went off script in an emotional scene, punching a brick wall and shattering his hand in the process.

Who would’ve known he’d make such a menacing villain?

Shia LaBeouf – Lawless, Fury

Shia LaBeouf is a full-time madman and part-time method actor. It’s hard to know when he’s completely throwing himself into a character, and when he’s being… well, himself. There’s no doubting the boy’s natural flair for the craft though.

On the set on 2014 army film Fury, which is low-key a banging film I might add, LaBeouf was said to be pretty insufferable throughout filming. In order to get inside the mindset of a WWII soldier behind enemy lines he basically traumatised himself.

After refusing to wash for a month he was confronted by co-star Brad Pitt about his ‘distracting odour’. Even more alarming were the revelations that he pulled his own tooth out for next to no reason and watched videos of horses dying for days on end.

And that’s just the tip of the LaBeouf-ian iceberg. While playing a crooked southern alcohol purveyor in Lawless, the Emmy winning actor ensured he was consistently wasted on moonshine. At one stage he even ‘play wrestled’ Tom Hardy down the stairs of his hotel room in the nude.

What ever happened to the nerd from Transformers?

Robert De Niro – Raging Bull, Taxi Driver

The best actor of all time. ‘Oh, what a cool and unique opinion, you’re such an aficionado of the dramatic arts, why don’t you go and get him tattooed or something’… already done it, no seriously.

One of the all-time greats De Niro nurtured his immense talents under the tutelage of both Stella Adler and Less Strasberg – two early champions of Stanislavski’s method acting. In preparation for Raging Bull, he shadowed the very boxer he would portray, Jake LaMotta, and participated in three amateur boxing fights himself, incredibly gaining 27kgs to his (then) slight frame to resemble an authentic middleweight.

Moreover, at the Harry Ransom Centre in Austin Texas resides a NYC taxi cab licence belonging to, you guessed it, a spritely young De Niro. During the filming of Taxi Driver in 1976 the Italian American spent his weekends behind the wheel of a yellow cab for 15-hours a day. Good way to earn some extra pocket money if you ask me.

Here’s to hoping he lands the role of a sadistic Uber driver sometime soon. I want my arm signed.

Adrien Brody – The Pianist

Have you ever been so committed to your job that you’ve lost your significant other? It’s not uncommon. People often get tunnel vision geared solely towards accomplishing a professional goal and outside influences feel like nought but a distraction.

It’s a syndrome I now refer to as ‘pulling a Brody’ and with good reason. To be fair Roman Polanski knows a thing or two about this kind of unwavering commitment too (to work ofc).

While filming for The Pianist in 2003, Brody dropped 13kgs to play Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman and nailed the look. He didn’t stop there though, Brody literally gave up his apartment, sold his car, disconnected his phone, and showed up to set with what little he still owned in a grey sack.

As you can imagine, his girlfriend at the time wasn’t too chuffed. Not even a shiny Oscar and the beautiful serenading of his flawless piano skills could persuade her to stick around.

Perhaps getting the boot helped him with the more emotional scenes in filming too. Beats the tweezers in the pocket routine.