Method Acting

C. was getting incensed recently over how grossly misunderstood & misused the term "method acting" is.

slate.com posted this, inspired by the recent passing of "method" poster-boy Marlon Brando.

What Is Method Acting?

It's really just a link to another article written by Lee Siegel, earlier this year:

Lights, Camera, Action: A post-Oscars reflection on the state of American acting.
It's time to talk about acting because acting as an art with a history of evolving styles—acting as a highly developed discipline that demands specialized training—almost never gets discussed. When it does you'll find vague references to the Method, the naturalistic style of acting imported from Russia into this country by Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio in the 1940s, which changed American acting, and which, in one permutation or another, still dominates the teaching of American acting...
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EDIT:

Here's a more direct definition of "METHOD ACTING".

Method acting is the endeavour to apply natural rules and laws to the theatre which can aid an actor with the process of playing a role.

This approach, characterized by lack of any specific or technical approach to acting, is usually the antithesis of cliché, unrealistic, and so-called "rubber-stamp" acting. Depending on the exact version taught by the numerous directors and teachers who claim to propagate the fundamentals of this technique, the process can include various ideologies and practices such as the extremely notable "what if", "substitution", and "emotional memory"...
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Read the rest by clicking on the link, you dirtbags!