Some Thoughts on Christ and Method Acting
26th Sunday of the Year
Method acting is a system of rehearsal techniques that allows an actor to give masterful, expressive performances in a theater production or in a film. The system of techniques was developed in the first few decades of the 20th century by the Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski. Method acting depends on what is called ‘the art of experiencing,’ a way in which an actor uses conscious thought and the freedom of their will to find motivations in a script. What kind of motivations? The kinds of motivations that might drive a character in a screenplay to perform one kind of action or another.
The premise behind method acting is that the most important fact about a person is why they make certain choices and why they perform certain actions. Motivation matters the most. The idea is that by using the highest, most elevated parts of the human mind (our reason and our will) an actor can read a script and find for a character the deep motivations that drive the choices that are made and the actions that are performed. And once an actor can find those kinds of deep motivations—once an actor connects his own thoughts and free will to the thoughts and free will of a character in a screenplay—then everything else gets connected between the actor and the character: emotions, passions, desires, feelings. The method actor, at that point, actually becomes a different person. The method actor becomes the character.
Maybe you have heard of method acting before. There are fascinating stories about method acting from the history of film and theater. The story goes that Tom Hanks so identified with his character in Castaway that he gained and lost 50 pounds during filming, refused to cut his hair or bathe, and eventually caught a staph infection from the performance. Natalie Portman trained in ballet for 16 hours a day, lost 22 pounds, and broke a rib during the filming of Black Swan. Leonardo DiCaprio is a vegetarian, but for his performance in The Revenant he spent weeks eating raw buffalo meat and sleeping in animal carcasses.
Stories about Daniel Day-Lewis are my favorite. To film In the Name of the Father, he locked himself in solitary confinement for 3 days; for Last of the Mohicans, Day-Lewis spent a month living in the wilderness of North Carolina using only 18th century tools and weapons to hunt and survive; he refused to wear a winter coat while filming Gangs of New York and caught pneumonia; and the story goes that Daniel Day-Lewis refused to break character as Abraham Lincoln for 3 full months while filming the movie Lincoln, requiring everyone on set, including director Steven Spielberg, to call him ‘Mr. President.’
I think we hear these kinds of stories and tell ourselves: I get it, these actors did crazy things so that they could understand their characters . . . spend enough time sleeping in animal carcasses and you’ll start to feel like a 19th century fur trapper. But that is not how method acting works. The method begins with the script: if you can find those deep motivations behind choices and actions, identify with them, and then bring your emotions and passions and desires along for the ride, you will become another person. And then you’ll have no choice but to lock yourself in solitary confinement or practice ballet for 16 hours a day or risk a staph infection. You will no longer be thinking with your own mind. You’ll be thinking with someone else’s mind, and so your life is going to start to look very different.
St. Paul tells us in our second reading today that we must put on the mind of Christ. He gives us our Christian screenplay and tells us to start putting on a performance. St. Paul wants us to live as method actors. The translation we get gives us “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus,” but St. Paul means something deeper. He is literally saying to us: Let the mind of Christ be in you. Stop thinking as you think. Stop feeling as you feel. Stop choosing as you choose. Stop desiring as you desire. Put on the mind of Christ.
We need to find those deep motivations to become good method actors. We need to know the reason Christ thinks what he thinks, chooses what he chooses. If we can find those motivations, maybe we can think and choose and finally feel and desire like Christ. St. Paul gives these motivations to us. He tells us why Christ lives as he lives:
If there is any encouragement in Christ,
any solace in love,
any participation in the Spirit,
any compassion and mercy,
complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love,
united in heart, thinking one thing.
For the sake of love, for the sake of living in the Spirit, for the sake of compassion and mercy, Christ takes everything that the Father has given him—full equality, power and freedom beyond measure—and he lets it go and he empties himself and he takes the form of a slave and he comes in human likeness and he humbles himself and he lives pure obedience and he dies on a cross. Then God exalts him. Do you see the reasons behind the choices and the actions of Christ? Do you see the deep motivation of his life? The answer is love—mercy, compassion. Christ chooses as he chooses, and he acts as he acts because of love. He loves the Father. He loves the Holy Spirit. He loves you. The why, for Christ, is love.
And what St. Paul tells us today is that you can put on the mind of Christ and live that kind of life. You can become someone new, a new creation in Christ. If you can connect your thoughts to the thoughts of Christ, your freedom of will to Christ’s own freedom, make his motivations the driving force behind why you live the way that you live, then your feelings and your desires and your emotions and your passions will come along for the ride, and you will become a new person. And the whole sacramental life of the Church is given to us so that this kind of transformation in Christ becomes possible for us. We are given everything we need to become new creations in Christ.
I guess that if you can find the deep motivation behind the choices that Christ makes and the actions that Christ performs, you still need to want to make his motivation your motivation. What I mean is: you have to want to love. That might mean that the problem in our world is an absence of a desire to love. Maybe that sounds unoriginal or uninspired or a little 1960s hippie to you.
But consider that in our second reading, St. Paul shows us what love looks like in the life of Christ. Love in the life of Christ is the humility of God. You take everything that you have been given, everything that you have received, and you let it go for the sake of someone else, for the sake of anyone else.
Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory;
rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,
each looking out not for his own interests,
but also for those of others.
St. Paul does not tell us: humbly regard select others—maybe your husband or wife or children or parents— as more important than yourselves. He does not tell us: look out for the interest of others who agree with you, or only good people, before you look out for your own interests. St. Paul does not tell us: be selfish whenever political or social or family circumstance demands it but otherwise go ahead and worry about other people. He tells us to do nothing out of selfishness or vainglory. He tells us to regard everyone, anyone, as more important than ourselves. He tells us to always look out for the interest of others before looking to our own.
Who lives like that kind of life? Christ lives like that kind of life, and so can we. You can, if you want, put on the mind of Christ.
So maybe there is a more basic question for us to ask ourselves first: Who wants to live like that kind of life? Because if we don’t want that kind of life, we will never live that kind of life.
Christ wants to live that kind of life, and so can we. You can, if you want, put on the mind of Christ.
Homily preached on October 1st, 2023 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary