The Madness Behind ‘The Method’
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4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2022
⏱️ 43 minutes
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Summary
When we think of method acting, we tend to think of actors going a little over the top for a role – like Jared Leto, who allegedly sent his colleagues dead rats when he was preparing to be The Joker, or Robert De Niro refusing to break character on the set of the movie Raging Bull.
But that’s not how method acting began. On this episode of Decoder Ring: we look at how “The Method” came to be so well-known and yet so widely misunderstood. It’s a saga that spans three centuries and involves scores of famous actors, directors and teachers. And it altered how we think about realism, authenticity, and a good performance.
Our guest today is Isaac Butler, who wrote The Method: How The 20th Century Learned to Act.
Decoder Ring is written and produced by Willa Paskin. This episode was produced by Elizabeth Nakano. Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Movie House of Gucci, which came out in 2021, tells the story of the real-life family |
| 0:10.9 | behind the famous fashion label. |
| 0:12.9 | It's a wild, scandalous tale, but the most breathless gossipy headlines about the film |
| 0:19.0 | didn't have to do with its plot. |
| 0:20.8 | They had to do with its actors, two of whom had gone method for their performances. |
| 0:28.0 | But they cannot wrap my head around. |
| 0:30.6 | It's people who still just for ego or the pleasure of it. |
| 0:36.1 | Lady Gaga, the film star, spoke in the Italian accent you just heard for nine months. |
| 0:41.0 | I think that there's a sort of idea around method acting that it's crazy and that we're |
| 0:46.9 | crazy. |
| 0:47.9 | But I think that for those of us that commit ourselves to method acting, there's something |
| 0:52.7 | about us that's just fully committing ourselves to the art on a cellular level. |
| 0:57.2 | Gaga's co-star, Jared Leto, used prosthetics and a hairpiece to render himself totally unrecognizable. |
| 1:04.2 | It's really just a way to stay incredibly focused and committed and concentrated. |
| 1:11.4 | That's really another way to describe going method. |
| 1:14.2 | Leto has also become infamous in recent years for staying in character, particularly on |
| 1:19.8 | the sets of superhero movies. |
| 1:22.2 | When he was playing the Joker, he allegedly sent his colleagues used condoms and a |
| 1:27.0 | dead rat. |
| 1:28.4 | When people talk about the method, that is usually what they think. |
| 1:31.4 | Isaac Butler is the author of the method. |
| 1:33.7 | How the 20th century learned to act? |
... |
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