Is Clint Eastwood considered a method actor?

Not really. No.

When I think of method acting I think of Daniel Day Lewis.

No. Method actors are guys like Brando, Dean, Hoffman, DeNiro, Pacino, Day-Lewis, Bale, etc.... I've never heard of Eastwood losing or gaining 60 pounds for a role like DeNiro and Bale did. Hoffman literally went days without sleeping to get more into character for Marathon Man. I don't recall any stories of Eastwood going to those kinds of extremes for any of his roles.

No. He is the oppositenofnmethod

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What's that Olivier story? Hoffman and Olivier in a movie together (MM) and Hoffman's up all night and ragged b/c his character is supposed to be...and they're sitting at the make-up table together and after questioning Hoffman about his demeanor and appearance - Hoffman explains this is how his character needs to be and therefore he put himself in that situation - literally.


And Olivier turns to Hoffman:

"Dustin, it's called acting."

or something like that...the story goes.

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Yeah, that's the insomniac story from Marathon Man I was referring to. Method actors really do everything they possibly can to become their characters. They take on their personality traits and everything. There's all kinds of stories out there about Daniel Day-Lewis. He basically became an expert at knife throwing preparing for Gangs of New York. Day-Lewis also became so adept at boxing for The Boxer that the former boxer who was training him for that role said he could have been a world champion boxer if he had started boxing from an earlier age. Jake LaMotta said the same thing about Robert DeNiro after Raging Bull. The amount of time and effort method actors put into their roles is insane.

Day-Lewis also lived by himself in the wilderness to get into character for The Last of the Mohicans.

yea sometimes I can't help but roll my eyes at some of the stories about what some method actors do.

"minor character works at TCBY for 6 months to prepare for her one scene where she serves yogurt" A true professional!!!

Best method performance is Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli.

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Clint Eastwood plays Clint Eastwood in every movie he's in.

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Yeah, he's just barely in the "let's pretend" school of acting.

You hired John Wayne, Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood because you wanted the main character to be the actor - not the other way around. Very few from that generation (remember - Clint is silent generation - he could have lied about his age and enlisted before the end of WWII) did any method at all - Brando and Dean being notable exceptions.