Question by Cougar J: which actors follow the Stanislavski’s ‘system’ method of acting?
Is Daniel Day Lewis one of them? who else?
Answers and Views:
Answer by The Snappy Miss Pippi Von Trapp
Pacino and DeNiro come to mind.
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Theatre Doc says
Stupid ones. The Stanislavski system and the Method are two very different things. Both, however, are outdated, and have been replaced by non-acting techniques of today. The Olivier/Hoffman story which is mis-told by your other answerer shows the idiocy of the Method. So do a lot of other things. You see, Americans misinterpreted what Stanislavski was doing in Russia. Strasberg, the greatest proponent of the Method was a fraud. Method actors were and still are, probably, a bunch of cliqueish snobs. Stanislavski did what he did in Russia because he had to retrain the bad actors there. We have had good acting in the US for nearly a hundred years and we do not need to go through the retraining that Stanilsavski used. The Method is full of angst-producing exercises that are unnecessary for well ballanced human beings.
actormyk says
Daniel DAy Lewis is probably a Method actor, and the method was the Americanized version of the System that Stanislavski began codifying with the Moscow Art Theatre back at the turn of the 20th century. Josh Logan, and American director and producer, went to Moscow to find out how to bring the System back to the US and Stanislavski said "You don't." Americans don't have to stand in lines for bread the way that Russians did; they didn't have to contend with a Russian winter; they had a say n their government. So the System was brought here and modified. Many of the Actors Theatre actors — Shelly Winters, Ellyn Burstyn, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Dustin Hoffman — are Method actors.
There is a great story about Sir Lawrence Olivier filming Marathin Man with Dustin Hoffman and Dustin Hoffman kept running around a New York block before running into the scene to be "appropriately" out of breath and Olivier looked at him and said, "My boy, it's called acting, you should try it sometime." Approaching a role from the outside in (Olivier)or the inside out (Hoffman and the Method) are two equally valid approaches to acting.
I would guess that Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, Robert Deniro, and Meryl Streep are Method actors