10 Actors Who Took Method Acting Too Far
3. Robert Pattinson - Little Ashes
Critics weren’t kind to 2008’s Little Ashes, a biopic of surrealist painter extraordinaire (and occasional fascist sympathizer) Salvador Dali, despite the evident effort that then-Twilight star Robert Pattinson put into his central performance as the troubled artist.
The film does deserve some commendation for centring a gay love story when it was written and directed in 2008, some years before LGBTQ+ stories would be wholeheartedly embraced by the mainstream. And Pattinson himself certainly deserves seriously kudos, having taken on the risky role of the artist whilst still best known for his parts in the tween fantasy franchises Twilight and Harry Potter.
Even still, was there really any need for the actor to actually masturbate onscreen during one of the film’s gay sex scenes? Pattinson refused to fake an orgasm, resulting in a take in which the real thing is preserved onscreen.
We can only hope he didn’t make the same commitment to spilling his beans for last year’s The Lighthouse, given how much self-love that would require…