The Succession star Jeremy Strong has been widely scorned after a magazine profile revealed his ‘preening’ and ‘self-indulgent’ acting process. But many actors have been lauded for their method – so what has changed?
Robert De Niro is the greatest actor of his generation. So claimed the headline in a popular magazine last year, and it’s not a controversial claim. The evidence offered for this opinion was the same that’s always wheeled out when discussing De Niro’s acting: “[He] took method acting to previously uncharted levels. He got a New York cab licence for Taxi Driver, learned Italian and lived in Sicily to prepare for The Godfather Part II, put on 60lbs to play Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, learned Latin for True Confessions and the sax for New York, New York. He was the hardest-working man in Hollywood,” wrote the journalist.
For decades, this has been the general feeling about actors: the more method, the better. After all, if they don’t eat raw bison and sleep in an animal carcass (Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant), stay in a wheelchair and be spoonfed by the crew (Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot) or lose so much weight that they start to go blind (Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club), they’re just playing make-believe. And why should they get all that fame, adoration and money just for that? All of the above actors were rewarded for their efforts with an Oscar, and actors talking about their method efforts has become as much a part of the run-up to the Oscars as shops playing Do They Know It’s Christmas in the run-up to the holidays.
