Natalie Portman is right – ‘method acting’ has always meant something different for women

Picture the scene. It’s a bright Friday morning, and Natalie Portman has a small gap in her hectic schedule so she can do the school run. When you’re a Hollywood star, it’s so important that the everyday routines that punctuate your kids’ lives don’t just pass you by. So: uniforms on, lunchboxes in hand, everyone, go go go! Except… when Portman arrives at the school gates, all the other parents turn to stare. The children start to cry – some of them are screaming in horror. Why is Portman standing there in a pastel pink suit covered in blood spatter and brains, pretending to talk to Lyndon B Johnson? Her children sigh – Mum’s gone method again.

OK, fine, this didn’t really happen. Although Portman’s performance as Jackie Kennedy in Pablo Larraín’s 2016 film Jackie was intense, weird and mildly distressing (and won her an Oscar nod), her preparation didn’t go to quite this extreme. In fact, in a recent interview, Portman was dismissive of these kinds of shenanigans from actors, characterising method acting as an indulgence that only certain people can enjoy.

“I’ve gotten very into roles, but I think it’s honestly a luxury that women can’t afford,” Portman told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. “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’s right – it’s just not possible to check out of reality when you have dependents. In 2021, Benedict Cumberbatch (father to three young kids) was hot on the Oscars trail for The Power of the Dog, telling everyone he spent months not washing or answering to his own name, and all I could think about was his poor wife.

But hasn’t “method acting” always been the domain of the dudes? Although the concept originated with acting teachers Stanislavski and, later, Lee Strasberg as a process of internal transformation – creating and inhabiting a new emotional landscape – today we largely think of it as something flashier, more external: a refusal to break character even off-set, or a determination to do punishing things to get in the zone. Like catching and killing your own food or living in solitary confinement (Daniel Day-Lewis for Last of the Mohicans and In the Name of the Father respectively), sending your co-stars creepy gifts (Jared Leto for Suicide Squad –although he later said he’d been joking about sending used condoms), or begging to be pepper sprayed (Jeremy Strong in The Trial of Chicago 7).

Unless they want to get a reputation for being difficult or deluded (or – as Portman suggested – terrible mothers), women don’t get to behave like this. It’s no coincidence that the so-called “method” stories that have gone down in tinsel town legend are mainly from male stars. Instead, the focus always falls on the occasions when female stars nobly sacrifice their beauty to “ugly up”. Like wearing a prosthetic nose (Nicole Kidman in The Hours), gaining 30 pounds (Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones’s Diary), or losing 25 pounds – and shaving your head (Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables).

It’s depressing that this is what is seen as “transgressive” for female stars, but it is also the way that they get rewarded. Charlize Theron won an Oscar after shaving her eyebrows, putting on weight and having dodgy hair in Monster. Jessica Chastain won the gold having worn false teeth, dodgy eyeshadow and prosthetics in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Meryl Streep got her third Oscar for The Iron Lady, in which she donned a silly wig and teeth to play Margaret Thatcher. And Natalie Portman, notably, existed on a diet of just almonds and carrots for Black Swan, a role that got her an Academy Award in 2010.

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But what’s also frustrating about the blokey, bolshy world of “going method” is the way that it seems to ignore the intensive, immersive research and preparation that female stars also do. Yes, Portman lost weight to star in Black Swan – she also worked with a ballerina from the New York City ballet for hours every day. She learned ballet! Zellweger spent weeks doing photocopying and making cups of coffee at a London publisher ahead of Bridget Jones’s Diary. Frances McDormand – and her director Chloe Zhao – really lived out of vans while making Nomadland. Hathaway researched prostitution for her role in Les Mis and even sent her husband away during filming to increase her isolation. They are no less committed to their artistry – it just doesn’t match the loud, outlandish, infamous parameters that are so often used to categorise great performances.

“Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at,” John Berger once famously wrote in 1972. The way we talk about method acting shows us how little has changed. Men kill wild animals; women wear weird wigs.