diff --git a/pages/introduction.md b/pages/introduction.md index b718520..eaef285 100644 --- a/pages/introduction.md +++ b/pages/introduction.md @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Author: Joshua Sklar -In the popular imagination, method acting is often associated with physically and emotionally extreme immersion into character. The most notorious adherents to this approach include Daniel Day Lewis, who famously refused to leave his wheelchair during the production of *My Left Foot*, Christian Bale, who is as notorious for his feats of weight gain and loss as for his emotional intensity as a performer, and most recently Jeremy Strong, who once said that he took Kendall Roy, the character he played on TV’s *Succession*, “as seriously as” he took “his own life.” This approach, the thought goes, allows the actor to replicate the emotional state of the character. The locus classicus of this tradition is often taken to be Robert De Niro’s performance as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, for which he gained sixty pounds. +In the popular imagination, method acting is often associated with physically and emotionally extreme immersions into character. The most notorious adherents to this approach include Daniel Day Lewis, who famously refused to leave his wheelchair during the production of *My Left Foot*, Christian Bale, who is as notorious for his feats of weight gain and loss as for his emotional intensity as a performer, and most recently Jeremy Strong, who once said that he took Kendall Roy, the character he played on TV’s *Succession*, “as seriously as” he took “his own life.” This approach, the thought goes, allows the actor to replicate the emotional state of the character. The locus classicus of this tradition is often taken to be Robert De Niro’s performance as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, for which he gained sixty pounds. The truth of the matter is that there is no single “method,” but rather a collection of approaches all inspired by Russian theater director Konstantin Stanislavski, the progenitor of method acting. Within the American tradition, the main exponents of method approaches were initially the teachers Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, and Stella Adler, the central subject of this project. Each of these teachers promoted a distinct philosophy of performance.