1. Daniel Day-Lewis
To list all of Daniel Day-Lewis' method acting preparations would take all day, but they are, quite simply, the stuff of legend. When preparing for his Oscar-winning performance in My Left Foot, Day-Lewis wouldn't leave the wheelchair, even when not filming, as he wanted to empathise fully with his character. Similarly, for The Boxer, he trained for 18 months with a world-class boxer, who attested that by that stage, Day-Lewis could have competed professionally. For The Last of the Mohicans, he spent 6 months living in the wild, and for The Crucible, insisted on having real tattoos rather than transfers. On the set of Gangs of New York, he reportedly went to the gym while still in character, and contracted pneumonia after refusing to wear thick coats on the grounds that they weren't period-authentic. As for his turns as Daniel Plainview and Abraham Lincoln in more recent years, well, they speak for themselves. Other off-screen curiosities, however, are perhaps the most intriguing and hilarious. When Martin Scorsese went to meet him to discuss Gangs of New York, he found him working as a cobbler in Florence, not for any particular role, but simply because he wanted to. Also, in surely the ultimate instance of method acting in human history, Day-Lewis suffered a nervous breakdown while playing the role of Hamlet on stage, having become convinced that he was talking to the ghost of his dead father, running from the stage in a flood of tears. Who is your favourite method actor? Let us know in the comments below.