Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore star Mads Mikkelsen calls out method acting with one blunt word: "bullshit."
In an interview with GQ, the actor held nothing back when describing how he feels about the acting practice. "...Preparation, you can take into insanity," he said. “What if it's a shit film -- what do you think you achieved? Am I impressed that you didn't drop character? You should have dropped it from the beginning! How do you prepare for a serial killer? You gonna spend two years checking it out?”
Method acting is a practice by which actors immerse themselves so deeply in a role that they embody the character they're portraying even off-camera. Jeremy Strong in Succession and Lady Gaga in The House of Gucci are some recent high-profile examples, as well as Morbius' Jared Leto, who reportedly used crutches and a wheelchair to travel to the bathroom on set.
Leto in particular has been known to use method acting for years, such as on 2016's Suicide Squad. Leto avoided breaking character and continued playing Joker when the cameras weren't rolling. Leto gifted Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn) a rat during filming, and there were rumors he sent used condoms to his co-stars on the production, though the actor later denied the reports.
Mikkelsen went on to muse over the possibility of acting opposite a dedicated method actor like Daniel Day-Lewis. "I would have the time of my life, just breaking down [his] character constantly," he said. Mikkelsen put on what the interviewer describes as a "prissy voice" to mock a hypothetical interaction. "'I'm having a cigarette? This is from 2020, it's not from 1870 – can you live with it?'" the actor said. "It's just pretentious."
The actor also blamed the entertainment press for encouraging method acting by conflating dedication with skill. "The media goes, 'Oh my god, he took it so seriously, therefore he must be fantastic; let's give him an award,'" Mikkelsen said. "Then that's the talk, and everybody knows about it, and it becomes a thing."
Fans of the Hannibal actor can catch him on the big screen taking over for Johnny Depp as the fearsome wizard Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. The film is in theaters now.
Source: GQ
