Oscar winner Natalie Portman thinks “women can’t afford” to embrace method acting.
Portman, 42, shared her thoughts about women using method acting, the controversial practice where an actor immerses themself into a character even when the cameras aren’t rolling, in a Monday, January 8, interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I’ve gotten very into roles, but I think it’s honestly a luxury that women can’t afford,” she told the publication.
Portman referenced her role as Jacqueline Kennedy in the 2016 film Jackie to further explain her thoughts about the practice. “I don’t think that children or partners would be very understanding of, you know, me making everyone call me ‘Jackie Kennedy’ all the time,” she said.
The May December actress has intensely prepared for roles, especially before playing Nina in 2010’s Black Swan, for which she won an Academy Award. Portman worked out for five hours a day which included ballet, swimming and cross training. Despite putting her all into a role, Portman says she’s never gone method.
The same can’t be said for Elizabeth Berry, the fictional actress that Portman plays in May December. The Todd Haynes-directed film, which debuted on Netflix in December 2023, has Elizabeth delve deep into the lives of Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore) and her husband Joe (Charles Melton), a married couple, who were at the center of a ‘90s tabloid scandal when a 36-year-old Gracie went to jail for raping a then-13-year-old Joe and subsequently had his child. Throughout the film, Elizabeth goes to great and shocking lengths to “understand” Gracie as a character, a clear attempt at method acting.
The concept of method acting was first created by Russian theater practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski in the 1900s and then was further developed by Lee Strasberg, an American director, actor and acting teacher. Strasberg was considered to be the “father” of method acting in America and encouraged his students to delve into character’s lives in what they were playing them in but also throughout the entire lifespan of the character.
More than a century later, some actors still embrace method acting, but to Portman’s point, many are men. In a December 2023 New Yorker profile, Jeremy Strong was the latest method actor to make headlines for immersing himself in his Succession character Kendall Roy. Strong said in the profile that he took playing Kendall as seriously as his own existence, saying, “To me, the stakes are life and death.” But he’s only one in a long line of actors who go hard on the method, including Robert DeNiro, Christian Bale, Al Pacino and Lady Gaga.
Jared Leto raised eyebrows for perhaps getting too into his role as the Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad. He didn’t drop the character throughout filming, even asking to be called Mister J and sending Harley Quinn actress Margot Robbie a live rat. At the 2024 Golden Globes, when presenting with Angela Bassett, Leto poked fun of himself and his method acting ways saying, “I have been in presenter mode for weeks now.”
