If Acting were the force,
Method Acting would be the Dark Side.

Method acting is basically this: Call upon your real life experiences to create an emotional response on stage for your character. For example, if you’re playing Anne Frank, and the Nazis burst in, you would have to be very scared. The actor would call upon a memory of a real life experience that made her scared; that could be anything from an alarmingly late period, to getting caught stealing shoes. These all elicit the emotion of fear, which the actor then uses for her character.

Frankly, I think that’s stupid. It’s a cheap way to recreate a character for the audience. I feel that an actor should cry because his character would cry; Not because the character remembered that one time he dropped an ice cream cone. Method Acting in its attempt to bring the audience closer to the character ends up separating the actor from his character. What a waste! The actor isn’t an actor when they are on stage, they are the character.
Method Acting is the shortcut, easy way out of actually attempting to act.

But not only is it cheap, it’s also dangerous.

In order to build up ones ‘methods repertoire,’ the past experiences an actor draws upon, sometimes actors will purposefully submit themselves to activities which can then be directly related to their character.

Heath Ledger was a strong method actor, from what I hear. His last, and certainly his best, role as the Joker was what pushed him over the edge… The Joker, in the newest Batman film, was a “a psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy,” in Heath’s own words. Allegedly, to prepare for this role, Heath Ledger spent two weeks in a pitch-black room, isolated from human contact. Thus, for his character, he could call upon what he experienced in this nightmare room. Eventually, during filming, Heath had trouble sleeping, only able to sleep for an average of 2 hours a night, saying “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” Constantly thinking, constantly on, his role as the Joker was incredible, but at what price?

Vigo Mortenson, on the other hand, is a different kind of actor. To prepare for a role, Vigo goes out and actually does Work. He reads on his role, he meets people who are like his role, and he practices his roles. He is not a method actor, but, what I like to call, an ‘insight actor’ instead. Vigo takes his time to look through and understand his roles. Take, for example, his role in Eastern Promises. To prepare for his role as Russian mafia undertaker, Vigo didn’t go around smuggling drugs and slaves or stabbing people on the street; Vigo met the people, and talked to them about their experiences. He actually went to a Siberian prison where they were keeping Russian mafia prisoners, and talked to them. It was Vigo who found out the importance of a man’s tattoos, and changed the film completely. Vigo took his time to research his role, not re-make one. It’s much more work, but is well worth it. Insight acting is the light side of acting.

The dark side of the force comes from “all strong emotion, even positive emotions like love” according to wikipedia. Much like the dark side, method acting also draws its power and energy from all strong emotions. The actor takes these strong emotions, and re-releases them into his character. On that assumption, the light side would be the opposite. It is more reserved, and patient. The light side waits, watches, and learns; much like research acting. The actor takes the time to calmly understand the character he is to portray. He does give in to the power the dark side offers, but instead walks the path of light. It is no longer the actor controlling the character, but instead the actor becoming the character; which gives a much better experience all around.