It is quite compelling to witness an actor completely demolish their real self and enter the world of their character. However, a small number of performers can’t just act; they end up being the character, living through the performance even after the cameras have stopped turning. This is the risky, sometimes fatal domain of method acting, where the actor and the character merge to such an extent that it becomes hard to differentiate between the two. Here are 10 of the most extreme instances – we have them in a countdown to be able to leave the most intense ones for last.
10. Natalie Portman — Black Swan
Natalie Portman’s training for Black Swan was as rigorous as the film. She cross-trained under professional ballet teachers for hours a day, lost 20 pounds from her already pencil-thin body, and swam. She worked 16-hour days and “barely ate,” which exhausted her physically and emotionally. Portman afterwards revealed she inadvertently fell into method acting, describing it as the most difficult experience of her career.
9. Hilary Swank — Boys Don’t Cry & Million Dollar Baby
Swank’s commitment to realism has won her two Oscars. For Boys Don’t Cry, she spent a month living like a man—binding her chest, masculinizing her voice, and losing weight to look more like Brandon Teena. Years down the line, in Million Dollar Baby, she put on almost 20 pounds of muscle and worked out like a genuine boxer, even contracting a staph infection from a wound. She later commented that the Boys Don’t Cry role would now be suitable for a trans actor, but nobody questioned her dedication back then.
8. Christian Bale — The Machinist & Beyond
One of the few actors who negatively affects their health is Christian Bale. To embody The Machinist, he lost almost 70 pounds and survived on coffee and apples with a total calorie intake of only a few calories. Moreover, it is stated that he was able to rest for only two hours a night. Besides that, he has also grown to be as big as a superhero for Batman Begins and afterward shed the mass for The Fighter and American Hustle. Bale admits that he had to give up doing these radical changes just for the sake of his health in the end.
7. Jamie Foxx — Ray
To embody Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx didn’t just study the legend—he lived in his skin. Foxx dropped 30 pounds and wore prosthetic eyelids glued shut for up to 14 hours a day. The darkness triggered panic attacks and claustrophobia until he adjusted. He likened the experience to serving “a jail sentence,” but the result was an Oscar-winning performance that felt eerily real.
6. Jared Leto — Dallas Buyers Club & Suicide Squad
Leto is infamous for taking it too far for the sake of character. In Dallas Buyers Club, he lost more than 30 pounds and remained in character as a trans woman both on and off the set. With Suicide Squad, his pranks as the Joker became Hollywood legend—sending offbeat gifts to co-stars, using a wheelchair on the set, and not breaking character. Love him or loathe him, he goes all the way.
5. Meryl Streep — The Devil Wears Prada
Meryl Streep is a chameleon, yet even she found method acting to be an emotional toll. Portraying Miranda Priestly, she remained chilly and remote from cast and crew, shunning small talk to keep up her character’s frightening presence. Streep afterwards described the method as making her miserable and depressed, and vowed never to work in that manner again, despite performing one of her most iconic performances.
4. Joaquin Phoenix — Joker
Phoenix had to give up 52 pounds to take on the role of Arthur Fleck, yet the transformation only went as far as his body. The drastic diet made him super-conscious of movement, giving his Joker a peculiar “fluidity” that permeated the whole acting. He described the ordeal as being disorienting for his mind and having an obsessive focus on each tiny fraction of weight that went down.
3. Heath Ledger — The Dark Knight
Ledger’s Joker is both iconic and unsettling. He spent a month in a hotel room alone, writing notebooks full of the character’s thoughts and trying out different voices and mannerisms. On location, he encouraged Christian Bale to punch him during their interrogation scene. The intensity became exhausting, taking a toll on Ledger’s insomnia and mental endurance. His posthumous Oscar award is still a testament to the power of the performance.
2. Robert De Niro — Taxi Driver & Raging Bull
De Niro pretty much wrote the present guidelines for method acting from scratch. In order to prepare for Taxi Driver, he got a real cab license and was driving around New York for 12 hours a day for 12 days to be fully immersed in the atmosphere. For Raging Bull, he trained for boxing for several months, stopped filming to gain 60 lbs to depict the older version of Jake LaMotta. To this day, the lifelikeness of both shows is still unmatched.
1. Daniel Day-Lewis — My Left Foot & Gangs of New York
If anyone were an ambassador of method acting, it would be Daniel Day-Lewis. For My Left Foot, he spent the whole shoot in a wheelchair, having crew members feed him. For Gangs of New York, he immersed himself off-camera in 19th-century living, eschewing modern amenities and even coming down with pneumonia because he refused to wear a modern coat. His dedication has landed him several Oscars and a reputation as the most intense actor of his time.
The Double-Edged Sword of Method Acting
These changes have provided us with some of film’s most enduring performances, but they also show the psychological and physical costs that accompany complete immersion. Genius results for some; high prices for others. Either way, these performers demonstrate that the difference between commitment and obsession is paper-thin—and the legacy they left behind is testament to how far they would take it.