Method Madness

Actors have something of a reputation, more so than other entertainers, for being erratic, whimsical, and impulsive. A movie star gets caught with three dead hookers, ten kilos of cocaine, and a goat, and he shrugs and sighs "It's my method."

When "method" is not being used as a catchall excuse for bad behavior, it refers to an approach to acting, pioneered by Stanislavski, of inducing an actor's own emotions in service of a performance– you don't try to look sad, but you use a memory to create a feeling of sadness within yourself and then allow that to drive the way you look, feel, speak, etc. It can be a very useful tool for finding truth and realism on stage or in film.

But there is also the danger of being so caught up in a quest truth/realism, that one begins to apply the method for the sake of applying it, rather than for any actual benefit to your performance. For instance, there's a famous story of Kirk Douglas in Spartacus needing to literally punch people during fight scenes, because he felt that following the fight choreography interfered with his need to "feel his moment."

Similarly, in the show I'm now doing, there are a few a fight scenes between my character and another, played by an actor I will call Stabby. Why Stabby? Because one day, without warning, this person decided to pull out a live switchblade in the middle of our stage combat. Because they had an impulse. And why would you, say, discuss the introduction of a live weapon with your fellow actors when in close contact? I mean, your Method yielded a bold new discovery, and that's urgent. What's one or two missing fingers or one little stab wound to another actor? Let's not lose sight of what's really important, here.

So every night since we began performing, Stabby has been struggling and hitting a little harder each night. Every time, my fellow actor and I come away with another bruise or two. And complaints have been met with, "Sorry, but that's the nature of stage combat."

This has led me to a very important discovery about my character: my character is, quite remarkably in Elizabethan Italy, a skilled Muay Thai warrior. He happens to know how to work in the clinch, and has a facility in throwing knees. Of course, since this is true of my character, I have been compelled to learn this myself. Now, I'm not saying that I will necessarily, say, on the last night of performance, put this into practice and crack Stabby's head on my knee with the goal of knocking him into Narnia. But I'm saying that I owe it to the audience to do what it takes to feel my moment.

Oh, and the end of that Kirk Douglas story: One day the fight choreographer pulled the director aside and asked him to take a look at something. As he did, all the other gladiators beat the tar out of Kirk. From then on, he stuck to the fight choreography instead of hitting people.