10 Secret Acting Methods You Never Knew

2. Robert Downey Jr. Is Fed Lines Through An Earpiece To Save Time

Robert Downey Jr. is a fantastic actor without question, though you might be surprised by a major acting "shortcut" he takes in order to give himself more downtime during a movie shoot.

During his recent appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast (7:41 in the below clip), the Avengers star admitted that he started using an "earwig" during production of Guy Ritchie's first Sherlock Holmes movie.

Because the script was being rewritten each day, he requested an earpiece to have the new lines fed to him, instead of learning lines which were then discarded. More importantly, this also allowed him to spend more time with his family after a day's shoot.

Downey Jr. has reportedly used an earpiece on every major movie he's starred in since, including the Avengers films, with the Russo brothers explaining that the writers would come up with a series of alternate lines the weekend before shooting for Downey Jr. to rattle through with the aid of his earpiece.

Given how effective the method clearly is, perhaps we should all cut Johnny Depp some slack, after he was widely criticised for employing the same technique on the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

However, Downey Jr. did add that he feels he's taken this technique about as far as he can, and he'll probably seek out a "new method" or create a "new version of the old method," whatever exactly that means.