Be the Mohican!

Born in Hollywood,

is simply a way of trying to get inside the fictional head of your character and literally becoming them in an attempt to be more convincing on screen. Actors will write out a history of their character to give them perspective. They will change their appearance, their living conditions, their diet, and remain in character even after hearing “Cut!” The following are just a few of these cases of maybe-a-little-too-far method acting:

Choi Min-Sik,

(2003). In this movie, the main character, Dae-Su, decides to burn a tattoo on his arm. Min-Sik didn’t think it would look realistic enough if it was don with effects, so he literally burned a number on his skin with a hot wire. The story also involves him eating a live octopus. Despite being a vegetarian Min-Sik ate several live octopuses just so it would look more convincing for the audience.

Hillary Swank, (1999). Playing a real life transgender woman for this film, Swank changed her bodily appearance, her dress, and took on masculine characteristics to live as a man for a month. This even involved losing weight and binding her breasts. She truly felt the loneliness of becoming a person who doesn’t fit the black-or-white definition of boy or girl. And she earned herself an Oscar for the role at the young age of 25.

Jamie Foxx, (2004). It would understandably be difficult to play a blind person when you are not one yourself. So Foxx decided to glue his eyes shut for 14 hours a day. He also lost weight for the role and got a dentist to chip a couple of his teeth. That’s right… he didn’t think his teeth were convincing enough for the role. Crazy, yes, I agree. Though it’s hard to argue with his Oscar win.

Dustin Hoffman, (1976). Hoffman’s character was supposed to be sleep deprived. You guessed it, he simply deprived himself of sleep. 72 hours worth! Stayed awake for six days and nights to communicate both being horrifically overtired and the ensuing neurosis that would go along with it.

Sylvester Stallone,

(1985). Sly liked things to look realistic and would ask for real blows in his boxing scenes. The worst for him was in the fourth installment when he wanted Rocky and Ivan Drago to look like they genuinely hated each other. He told Dolph Lundgren to try and knock him out within the first 45 seconds of the scene. “Really try to knock me out,” he told him. “I mean go for it” So, the first 20 seconds that you see in the movie is real. What is also real is that Stallone was really feeling it that night. He wondered if something went wrong. Well, it did. Dolph’s efforts, ordered by Stallone, landed the action movie legend in intensive care for a little more than a week.

Daniel Day-Lewis, almost everything he’s been in. There are far more stories of this kind about a lot of actors, but DDL is best known for his becoming the character he’s in. His first major Hollywood movie (after mostly being in independent films) was in 1992 where he played a white man who lives amoungst and fights with an Indigenous tribe, the Mohicans. According to IMDb, “for this film he lived in the wilderness where his character might have lived, hunting and fishing and living off the land for prior to shooting” (emphasis mine).

Congratulations This is your week.

Best Actress:

Joan Chen as Wan Jung in .

Best Actor: John Lone as Pu Yi in

Best Quote: “I do not call myself subject to much at all.” — Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye in

I’m actually heading to watch a movie tonight with Joybells. I believe the one we’re taking in will be Hoping Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron will deliver the goods!