Getting in character. Many well-known Hollywood stars use method acting to get into character and to better bring authentic portrayals to the screen.
As Nicole Kidman prepared to play the intimidating Masha in Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers adaptation, which premiered in August 2021, she only spoke with Masha’s thick Russian accent and wouldn’t be addressed by her real name.
“I wanted a very calm, healing energy to emanate all the time. So I remember going over to people and sort of putting my hand on their heart or holding their hand,” she explained during a Television Critics Association panel at the time. “They would talk to me or use my name Nicole, and I would completely ignore it. I’d only respond to Masha.”
The Big Little Lies alum’s accent and mindset didn’t just apply to when she was on set, but even when she went home at the end of each day. She even revealed that her husband, Keith Urban, liked her particular characterization.
“He enjoyed Masha when she came home,” Kidman revealed to E! News that month, “He kind of liked the Russian accent, I have to say.”
The Prom actress isn’t the first actor to go above and beyond for their craft, playing their characters authentically. For instance, Shia LaBeouf joined a regiment of the armed forces and had his tooth removed before shooting Fury.
“Fury is the most meat I’ve ever had to chew on,” the Even Stevens alum revealed to Dazed magazine in November 2014. “David [Ayer, the director] told us right from the gate: ‘I need you to give me everything.’ So the day after I got the job, I joined the U.S. National Guard. I was baptized – accepted Christ in my heart – tattooed my surrender and became a chaplain’s assistant to Captain Yates for the 41st Infantry. I spent a month living on a forward operating base.”
LaBeouf also noted that he pulled out his own tooth, “knifed” his face up, spent several days “watching horses die” and didn’t bathe for four months to better get into character.
Other actors use various tricks to keep up their characterizations in between takes. Grey’s Anatomy star Camilla Luddington retained Jo’ Wilson’s American accent even when the cameras stopped rolling, instead of returning to her native English one.
“I cannot do what Kevin McKidd does and he spends the day flipping back and forth between accents,” the British actress explained via Snapchat, per an August 2017 YouTube recording. “If I did that, then Jo Wilson would sound probably very British, so even when I am not shooting in character, I keep this accent because it’s easier for me to maintain sounding American all day.”
Scroll below to learn which actors embraced method acting for their well-known roles:
“I'd hear him say a certain word and I would clip just that bit out so I knew how he said that word," Butler told Entertainment Weekly in June 2022 of preparing to tackle Elvis Presley’s signature twang in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic. “I created my own archive of how he said every word and every diphthong, and the way that he used musicality in his voice. He continued: “There are so many people out there who are super-fans, who compile these websites that have the most amazing resources. I scoured all of them. I looked at every YouTube video I could find and every film that I could watch, and I started making my own [sound catalog]. I would take an interview or a speech that he had on stage where he is talking to the audience, and I would practice it as though I was trying to get it to be exact.” While Elvis has since completed filming, Butler’s voice has stayed the same. “You spend so much time obsessing about one thing, and it really is like muscular habits, your mouth can change,” he told Elle Australia earlier that month. Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
“There were a few times that my wife forced me to take a shower while we were shooting, because I wanted to stay in character as best I could,” the country singer recalled of filming Yellowstone prequel 1883 alongside spouse Faith Hill during a May 2022 appearance on the “Just for Variety” podcast. “She’s like, ‘I don’t care about method. You stink!’” Emerson Miller/Paramount+
Morbius director Daniel Espinosa confirmed during an interview with UPROXX that the 30 Seconds to Mars singer used crutches the entire time he was on set, making the cast and crew wait up to 45 minutes as he hobbled his way to the bathroom. "Because I think that what Jared thinks, what Jared believes, is that somehow the pain of those movements, even when he was playing normal Michael Morbius, he needed, because he’s been having this pain his whole life. Even though, as he’s alive and strong, it has to be a difference," Espinosa explained. Eventually, "a deal was made" to have Leto wheeled in a wheelchair to the restroom in order to expedite his trips. “Hey, man, it’s people’s processes," the director added. "All of the actors believe in processes. And you, as director, you support whatever makes it as good as you can be." Matt Baron/Shutterstock
“I don’t really go as immersive as I did before I had kids. But I did get very into yoga, and I actually really want to thank my teacher who worked with me every single day getting ready to play Rebekah. Rebekah is a very passionate vegan," Hathaway, who shares two children with husband Adam Shulman, said on The Late Show in March 2022.She continued: “I became a raw vegan. I did that thing — I don’t know if you guys have ever gone vegan. By the way, it’s great. And we should do as much as we can to eat vegetables for the environment." Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock
During a March 2022 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Kravitz joked that she “actually” drank milk from a cat bowl to prepare for her role as Selina Kyle/Catwoman in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. “I'm method, dude,” she quipped to host Jimmy Fallon, noting that she also “hung out” with felines while shooting. “They don't care. They were the hardest thing to control during the shooting. We were doing crazy stunts and all that was fine, but then getting a cat to stay in one place? Impossible.” Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock
“There were some nights around that I probably didn’t sleep as well as I would’ve wanted to just because it was a little hard to come down from this character," Dano, who plays The Riddler, in The Batman explained to Entertainment Weekly in February 2022. "It takes a lot of energy to get there. And so you almost have to sustain it once you’re there because going up and down is kind of hard." The New York native explained that his insomnia came from wrapping himself in plastic wrap to get into character, adding, “My head was just throbbing with heat. I went home that night, after the first full day in that, and I almost couldn’t sleep because I was scared of what was happening to my head. It was like compressed from the sweat and the heat and the lack of oxygen. It was a crazy feeling.” Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
"One of my favorite things about what we do for a living is when you get the opportunity to learn a new skill for a reason, other than you just want to give it a go," Holland explained during an interview on SiriusXM’s “Pop Culture Spotlight” in February 2022. "So, I went to a bartending school. I ended up doing a few shifts at this bar in London, which was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And it's a nice little set piece in the movie.” The Uncharted star continued: ”I had to have a white tuxedo and everything. I would go in there and take the bartender's clothes and be in there undercover. It was fun. I enjoyed myself." Shutterstock
The actor’s Social Network costar Dakota Johnson claimed in January 2022 that he ignored her on set. “I remember sitting down with you guys when you were having lunch one day, and you asked me loads of questions,” the actress told castmate Andrew Garfield in a Vanity Fair YouTube video. “You were really nice, and Jesse didn’t acknowledge me. He was probably in character.” Garfield replied: “Oh boy, I don’t know. I feel like I need to defend him in some way. There was maybe some of the [Mark] Zuckerberg coming through in that moment.” Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock
In the 2021 film King Richard, Bernthal played Venus and Serena Williams' real-life coach Rick Macci — but he wasn't a tennis pro. He underwent full training and even coached real young athletes before making the movie. "I played baseball and football, I was a boxer, but I definitely didn't play tennis!" Bernthal told Entertainment Weekly in December 2021. "I trained [as a coach] at the Tennis Academy in Ojai for three or four hours a day, six days a week. It wasn't just learning the game — I got to coach nationally ranked young women and go through the whole process of tournaments." He added that he did the same in The Unforgiven, released in November 2021. He was playing a forklift driver, so he got a forklift license. Drew Altizer Photography/Shutterstock
“So [director Francis Ford Coppola] had all the vampire hunters live on one property and poor Gary [Oldman] had to live by himself,” Cary Elwes recalled of his experience filming 1991’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula during a November 2021 interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “Gary was sleeping in a coffin every night, that was how seriously he took it. He was sequestered from us all — by choice. So we met him for the first time on set during rehearsals and then we’d never see him again.” Moviestore/Shutterstock
The Oscar winner spoke with an Italian accent for nine months, both on and off camera, to prepare for her role in House of Gucci. “I never broke," she told British Vogue in November 2021 of playing Patrizia Reggiani. "I stayed with her.” Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock
While filming Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, the Oscar winner smoked marijuana to embrace her character who often got “high in the movie,” to calm her nerves, she revealed to Yahoo Entertainment in November 2021. However, many of her costars took her trippy state as a chance to play jokes on her. “I was a real target,” she recalled. “Everyone was f—king with me … I guess because I was high. Easy to f—k with.” The Hunger Games star, who was expecting her first child with husband Cooke Maroney at the time of the interview, clarified any assumptions about the timing of her method acting: “I know what you’re going to say, and I wasn’t pregnant.” Niko Tavernise/Netflix
For his 2021 film The Power of the Dog, the Sherlock alum quit bathing so that he'd smell as bad he imagined his character would have. "I wanted that layer of stink on me," he told Esquire UK in November 2021. "I wanted people in the room to know what I smelt like. It was hard, though. It wasn’t just in rehearsals. I was going out to eat and meet friends of [director] Jane [Campion] and stuff." He also smoked real cigarettes throughout filming, which added to his particular smell. “That was really hard,” he noted. “Filterless rollies, just take after take after take. I gave myself nicotine poisoning three times. When you have to smoke a lot, it genuinely is horrible.” Loredana Sangiuliano/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
Kidman stayed in character the entire duration of the five-month Nine Perfect Strangers shoot. “I wanted to not meet everybody before we started, so we set it up in the way where that was the first time I would meet everybody,” the Australia native told Variety in August 2021. “I stayed in character so that I could just relate to each person in that way. Otherwise, it would have felt very strange, coming in and chatting and trying to slip into Masha." While taking on the role of Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos later that year, Kidman started smoking cigarettes to make her voice sound more like the iconic comedian’s. “They decided her Lucy needed to have a deep smoker’s voice, so I started smoking,” she shared with DuJour in December 2021. “If I warm up for a minute, I now can do her voice standing on my head." Vince Valitutti/Hulu
The Oscar winner spent the better part of a year preparing to take on the role of Abraham Lincoln in 2012’s Lincoln. He stayed in character each day, read multiple biographies and autobiographies and even studied photographs of the historical figure. “I looked at them the way you sometimes look at your own reflection in a mirror and wonder who that person is looking back at you,” Day-Lewis told The New York Times that October. Moviestore/Shutterstock
To fully commit to his role in Ray, the Beat Shazam host agreed to wear prosthetic eyelids that were glued over his eyes. "Imagine having your eyes glued shut for 14 hours a day," Foxx told The New York Times what it was like in September 2004. "That's your jail sentence." Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
When Brody was shooting The Pianist, he sought to understand the mindset of his character, concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman. "I gave up my apartment, I sold my car, I disconnected the phones, and I left," he said in a BBC interview in January 2003. "I took two bags and my keyboard and moved to Europe.” To portray Szpilman, who lived in a Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust, the award-winning actor aimed to understand what starvation would have been like at the time. “I couldn't have acted that without knowing it,” he said. "I've experienced loss, I've experienced sadness in my life, but I didn't know the desperation that comes with hunger." Guy Ferrandis/Focus Features/Studio Canal/Kobal/Shutterstock
When Portman booked the lead in Black Swan, she enrolled in daily ballet lessons to play the trained dancer accurately. She studied under professional ballerinas at the New York City Ballet for several hours each day, swam miles and cross-trained. She told NPR in November 2010 that her toenails fell off, her feet became calloused and she dislocated a rib as a result of training. “There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die,” Portman explained to the U.K.’s Independent in January 2011. Fox Searchlight/Kobal/Shutterstock
For his role in Fury, LaBeouf embraced the gritty military life, even enlisting in the National Guard, he told Dazed in November 2014. “I spent a month living on a forward operating base,” he told the magazine. “Then I linked up with my cast and went to Fort Irwin. I pulled my tooth out, knifed my face up and spent days watching horses die. I didn’t bathe for four months. I met some tankers who told me that was just the way it was out there – some guys had the same pair of socks on for three years.” Courtesy Sony Pictures Entertainment/YouTube
The Grey’s Anatomy actress swapped her native British accent for an American one to play Dr. Jo Wilson on the medical drama. While it can seem effortless on screen, she once noted that she has to stay in character between takes to avoid losing the accent. “I cannot do what Kevin McKidd does and he spends the day flipping back and forth between accents,” she explained via Snapchat, per an August 2017 YouTube recording. “If I did that then Jo Wilson would sound probably very British. … I keep this accent because it’s easier for me to maintain sounding American all day and that is why some behind-the-scenes videos, I also sound American because I’m [on set].” Rick Rowell/ABC/Kobal/Shutterstock
While the 50 Shades of Grey star was working on The Fall, he followed women around town to understand his tortured character’s mindset. “The first series, I did do a couple of things to try to get inside [his mind],” he told the Los Angeles Times in March 2015. "On the tube, which is our underground system ... This is a really bad reveal: I, like, followed a woman off the train one day to see what it felt like to pursue someone like that.” He continued, “It felt kind of exciting, in a really sort of dirty way. I’m sort of not proud of myself. But I do honestly think I learned something from it because I’ve obviously never done any of that. It was intriguing and interesting to enter that process of ‘what are you following her for?’ and ‘what are you trying to find out?’” Courtesy Netflix/YouTube
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