Sometimes good things come in small packages, both in terms of gifts and art. In the case of these five examples, a great performance came from a young actor. There is something special about a child acting. They have such active imaginations that they are able to live naturally under imaginary circumstances with far less effort than their adult counterparts. In the performances that follow, these kids were acting alongside established Hollywood stars and Academy Award-winners and holding their own on the screen. Here are five child actors who turned in performances that every actor can learn from.

1. Jodie Foster – Taxi Driver

Jodie Foster has had a long and successful career in Hollywood and it all started back in 1976 with her breakout role in Taxi Driver. Foster was only 14 years old when she played a child prostitute opposite Robert De Niro but she definitely holds her own. The vulnerability and disconnect that the young Jodie Foster brought to the character of Iris is tragic and uncomfortable to watch at times. She was recognized with an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her efforts.

2. MacCauley Culkin – Home Alone

Home Alone is both a holiday classic and a hilariously campy film, but underneath the charm, MacCauley Culkin delivers a devilishly good performance. Culkin plays Kevin, a young boy who is accidently left behind by his family, with gusto. He is at once funny, cute, and wildly intelligent for his age. There is a great montage of Kevin enjoying his newfound independence but the real comedy and drama is saved for the closing thirty minutes in which Kevin evades would be thieves.

3. Haley Joel Osment – The Sixth Sense

This movie is famous for bringing audiences the most quotable quote of the last few decades: “I see dead people.” Not coincidently, the quote was delivered by Haley Joel Osment, whose honesty and fear made the moment memorable. As a troubled boy with supernatural powers, Osment is eerie and chilling, yet sympathetic, a hard balance to strike for any performer. Watch to the end for an all-time twist.

4. Dakota Fanning – I Am Sam

At only seven years old, Fanning starred opposite Sean Penn in the heartbreaking film I Am Sam. Penn is a mentally challenged man struggling to raise his daughter and Fanning is just beginning to realize her situation. Despite her growing intelligence and her father’s inability to manage both of their lives, Fanning’s character is loyal and loving toward her father to the end. Fanning herself is bright and cheerful with an emotional depth that earned her a SAG nod. No small feat for a seven-year old.

5. Quvenzhané Wallis — Beasts of the Southern Wild

At NYFA, we always recommend that actors study the craft of acting before embarking on a professional career, but Wallis didn’t take our advice. At 6 years of age, Quvenzhané made her screen debut as Hushpuppy in the magical fantasy Beasts of the Southern Wild. Wallis is composed and commanding in her performance as the lost girl in search of her mother and acting didn’t go unnoticed. At the 2013 Academy Awards, Quvenzhané Wallis became the youngest Best Actress nominee in history. She was nine years old at the time of her nomination.

Actors old and young can learn from each other. Technique develops with experience but there is something to be said for an active imagination and intuitiveness of camera. Next time you tackle a role, bring out your inner kid for a natural and inspiring performance.

There are so many different acting techniques and books and teachers that finding a process that works for you can be confusing. Ironically, most acting books and teachers use similar principles as basis of their pedagogy; Stanislavski’s system. This is because Constatin Stanislavski is considered the father of modern acting and every acting technique created in the modern era was influenced by “Father Stan.” For young actors, understanding of Stanislavski’s seven questions is an invaluable foundation upon which to build a character.

1. Who am I?

Start with the basics and then fill in the gaps with your imagination. Pick apart the script to find out what type of person your character is; what they look like, what they believe, how others describe them and so on. Think about your character’s past and the significant events/people that influenced them and made them who they are in the script.

2. Where am I?

The script will usually tell you where you are but the important thing for an actor is to consider how the character feels about the place they are in. Characters act differently in public than they do in private. People move differently when they are cold vs. when they are too hot. The space your character occupies can determine how they behave during a scene.

3. What time is it?

Year, season, month, day, and time of day should all be described. Then, think about how the specific time of the play changes the character’s action. If it’s set in Victorian England, voice and proper etiquette will be different than San Francisco in the 1960s.

4. What do I want?

This is a character’s primary motivation for everything they do in a scene. All actions should be executed with the goal of getting what you want from the other characters in the scene. This is also called a character’s objective.

5. Why do I want it?

There must be a driving force behind your objectives on stage and on screen and that is your justification. We all having reasons for doing what we do and characters are no different. Give your character a convincing reason for acting and you automatically generate high stakes which leads to tension.

6. How will I get what I want?

Use your dialogue, movements, and gestures to try to influence the other characters to give you what you want i.e. accomplish your objective. This is also called a character’s tactic. If one tactic fails, try a new one and see if that works.

7. What must I overcome to get what I want?

There is always something stopping you from achieving your objective. Usually, there is someone or something in the outside world impeding a character’s advancement and also some internal conflict with which they struggle. Find what it/they are and fight against them with the scene. This is also called a character’s obstacle.

These seven simple questions can provide hours of work for an actor to answer fully. The flip side is that an actor who puts in the time and energy will inevitably have a greater understanding of their character and their personal acting technique. Take them, learn them, and think about them. That is why Stanislavski asked them.

[su_note]Learn more about the School of Acting at the New York Film Academy, with campuses in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.[/su_note]

“My dear boy, why don’t you just try acting?”

A famous quip from Lawrence Olivier regarding Dustin Hoffman’s dedication to method acting on Marathon Man, the merits of adamantly sticking to character even when the cameras aren’t rolling are hotly debated in acting school.

Somewhat disappointingly, the exchange between the two great actors was revealed by Hoffman himself to be not quite accurate, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that sometimes, a performance requires a little something extra from the acting talent.

Here’s five notable examples of roles that took a lot out of the people behind them, whether on a voluntary basis or otherwise. And be sure to check out our piece on the history and legacy of method acting as well as our preceding article on how actors like Marlon Brando used method acting.

Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight

Ledger’s penultimate performance before his untimely death is as enigmatic as the character he played.

In preparation for his turn as The Joker in the 2008 film The Dark Knight, Ledger is widely known to have put himself through the wringer to bring something original to the role…and the hard work paid off.

It’s well known that the Oscar-winning actor locked himself in a hotel room for an entire month, rambling and laughing to himself as he developed the character (it’s easy to imagine hotel staff avoiding that particular corridor in the small hours of the morning.)

It’s also widely reported that during this time he kept a scrapbook diary, also put together while in character. What isn’t fully known, however, are the exact contents of the diary—the closest the public have ever gotten to seeing what the troubled actor put into it can be seen only in this clip:

It’s clear to anyone who has seen the resulting movie that Heath gave his all to the character and performance. To what extent that contributed to the factors surrounding his tragic passing is up for debate, and probably always will be.

Robert De Niro – Cape Fear

Putting yourself in isolation for weeks to develop a character is one thing, but having extreme dental work performed is another thing altogether…

… and that’s exactly what Robert De Niro did for his terrifying role as Max Cadyln in the 1991 Cape Fear remake. Not only did he undergo extensive training to build muscle and get his body fat down to only four percent, but he also paid $20,000 out of his own pocket to have his teeth ground down to bring a more ominous look to his character.

Christian Bale – The Machinist

As well as putting on a huge amount of mass to play Batman in the aforementioned Nolan franchise, Christian Bale had also been to the other extreme less than two weeks prior to donning the cape and cowl.

For The Machinist, Bale dropped 63 pounds to achieve the worryingly skeletal figure that can be seen in the film. Interestingly, this was almost an unnecessary devotion on Bale’s part—the weights mentioned in the movie (and written on the bathroom wall) were based on screenwriter Scott Kosar’s own weight, which were comparatively tiny given Kosar is only 5’6”. When it came time to change them after casting was complete, the 6’0” Bale insisted the figures were to be kept as written in an attempt to match them.

In reference to the above scene, 121 pounds at 6’0” is so underweight it only just appears at the bottom of the BMI scale.

Bale gorged on pizza and ice-cream to get up to Batman proportions just six weeks later.

Joaquin Phoenix – I’m Still Here

It takes a special kind of actor to put their own sanity and health on the line for the sake of character immersion, but it’s on another level still to purposefully put your entire career in jeopardy solely to fulfill a prank.

In 2009, Phoenix publicly announced a surprise retirement from his exceptionally successful acting career…to focus on becoming a rapper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRb_3hCa72Y

As many suspected, it was all an elaborate ploy feeding into a mockumentary centered around the idea, but one which he kept up in his real life much to the confusion of everyone not in on the joke who were beginning to believe he was genuinely attempting a woeful career change.

The project very nearly killed his credibility and the acting career he pretended to give up, but after taking a genuine break following the big reveal, he came back swinging with 2012’s The Master.

Daniel Day-Lewis – Everything He’s Ever Been In

Possibly the most famous method actor of them all, we could fill an entire post full of examples where Day-Lewis delved so far into his character that the reclusive actor himself practically stopped existing for the duration of the shoot. Essentially, on any of his carefully chosen projects, there is only the character.

And not only does he never break character under any circumstance while on set, but he even follows through this devotion long before the cameras start rolling; in preparation for Lincoln, he demanded a full year of preparation to shut himself away, read every book written about Honest Abe and become the former President.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiSAbAuLhqs

For The Last of the Mohicans, he learned to live off the land and did so for lengthy spells in the run up to filming. For My Left Foot, he insisted on retaining his character’s severe paralysis and needed to be moved in his wheelchair between takes (much to the chagrin of the crew.)

But perhaps the biggest example of this is the one scenario in which Day-Lewis was finally forced to break his devotion to the role. In preparation for his role as Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York, he spent some time before filming training as an actual butcher and then proceeded to stay in character as usual while filming during a particularly brutal New York winter.

Refusing to wear a warm coat unbefitting of the movie’s era, he developed pneumonia. Naturally, he refused modern medication to treat this right up until practically arriving at death’s door.

If that isn’t dedication to a role, we don’t know what is.

[su_note]Learn more about the School of Acting at the New York Film Academy, with campuses in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.[/su_note]