Whenever you hear an actor explain how he prepared for a role, the actor usually explains how he tried to find “the truth that lay at the heart of the character” or some equally pretentious acting manifesto. There is also some obligatory reference to “the method,” that famous revered method derived from the work of the now legendary Konstantin Stanislavski. However, among Hollywood actors, “the method” has been slowly dying away, its waning popularity only kept alive by traditionalists such as Daniel Day Lewis, Sean Penn, or (oddly enough) Wesley Snipes, who even off camera on the sets of the Blade movies disappeared completely, leaving the Daywalker himself eating bagels at the craft services table. Acting is essentially lying. The objective of any good actor is to make the audience believe they are someone completely different.

The method as taught by Lee Strasburg of the Actor’s Studio was an attempt to get at the truth of the lie. If actors recalled their own emotional experience and attached it to the experience of the character then the effect would be a realistic portrayal of an emotion that the audience would hopefully recognize and relate to. David Thomson of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article stating that the method was dead and the stars of today like George Clooney and Johnny Depp have decided to invoke the styles of Cary Grant and Bob Hope rather than Marlon Brando or James Dean. I would argue that he is completely wrong and that method acting is not dead at all, but has simply gone through a Darwinian adaptation to survive the changing times. The best place to see the method on display is not in the next DeNiro picture, but in the antics of the self-described guido and guidette, The Situation and Snooki of MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”

The essential difference between the style of playing pretend and the method can be summed up quite nicely in a quote by acting legend Laurence Olivier. On the shoot of Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman had stayed up all night and ran himself to exhaustion to create a realistic portrayal of an exhausted man. When he arrived on the set the next day, legend has it that Laurence Olivier turned to him and said, “Try acting dear boy, it’s much easier.” The difference between the two is the difference between playing sad and being sad. The declining popularity of method acting should not affect the perceptions that today’s audience prefers anything other than the truth that the method provided for them during all those glorious years of Brando, DeNiro, and Pacino. Audiences’ cravings for reality or at least the imitation of reality that they get from TV and film can be seen in the death grip reality TV has had over the television industry for the past decade. And it is precisely here that some of the best examples of the method can be seen.

Anyone who maintains a steady diet of reality TV knows that “reality” is a bit of a misnomer. Mark Burnett, the creator of “Survivor,” says that, “it really is not reality TV. It really is unscripted drama.” Unscripted Drama is a much more fitting term for what is commonly referred to as reality TV. Even the “unscripted” idea often comes under fire from the reality police. MTV’s “The Hills” was constantly accused of having premeditated scripts and actors appearing on the show. “Survivor” has been known to restage incidents not properly captured on camera. The main unreality, however, is the producer’s power to control the reality on the set and the editor’s power to “re-write reality” after filming has completed. Daniel Petrie Jr., former president of the Writers Guild of America, has said, “We look at reality TV, which is billed as unscripted, and we know it is scripted. We understand that shows don’t want to call the writers writers because they want to maintain the illusion that it is reality; that stuff just happens.”

Jersey Shore has recently become one of the most popular shows on television, thanks to its outrageous cast of characters with names like “Sammi Sweetheart” or “Jwoww.” However the main “characters” on the show and the ones getting the most exposure are Michael Sorrentino and Nicole Polizzi or, as they are better known, the Situation and Snooki. Their names alone provide a certain disconnect from reality, and it seems they adopted these names specifically for the television program. Polizzi was previously on another MTV show entitled,” Is She Really Going out With Him?”, and as you can see there is never a mention of the name Snooki, suggesting that the name was one she adopted to help create her character on the Jersey Shore. Many reality TV show participants admit after the show has aired that they acted crazier or stranger than they actually are in order to get more screen time. The people we see on the screen are exaggerated versions of the actual human beings that they are.

Many professional actors simply portray different versions of themselves in their films. Christopher Walken and John Wayne are the two cliché examples of actors who take their own persona and attach it to whatever script they’re making. These reality show actors are simply taking that next logical step: they play versions of themselves, only the dialogue is improvised and the script is guided by the producers of the show during filming. For example, this kind of show relies on the drama of relationships, catfights, fistfights, and lots of people screaming at each other, and when the producers introduced Snooki’s ex-boyfriend in episode seven, it created exactly the kind of relationship drama they’re looking for. The producers also remove elements to make sure the characters (and subsequently the viewer) have the most fun they can. Angelina Pivarnick, is a perfect example of this.  Angelina, a self-avowed c**k block, was removed after three episodes, due to her tendency to interrupt and ruin the debauchery of the men on the show, because let’s face it, no one watched the show to see guidos not hook up.

The editors then go at the footage in postproduction and help shape the characters even more. By the time the footage is aired, we have seen people exaggerate themselves, producers guide the story to their liking, and then editors pick and choose clips, show them out of order, and combine different audio and video clips to misrepresent chronology, motivations, and behaviors. If a motivation gets taken out of context the entire audience perception of that character can change. When Ronnie got into a fight on the boardwalk and then blamed it on Sammi, the editor took great care to show that Sammi was walking home alone, even though Ronnie, Pauly D, and the Situation were all near by. This edit made Ronnie seem as if he was treating her even worse than he actually was, creating sympathy for Sammi and vilifying Ronnie. The editors here are re-writing reality, just as the producer are when they introduce/remove elements. Ronnie’s character takes on a while new dimension.

The method is supposed to use sense memory so actors can display real emotions, so then we, the audience, see real emotions in fake situations, and that is exactly what “Jersey Shore” gives us. Through the editing and production, the reality we see is no longer reality. What we are left with is tinkered with situations, such as Pauly D getting an immediate DJing gig at a bar, then we get to watch as the guidos improvise their characters and fist pump to their hearts’ delight.

This past year in Cold Souls and JCVD, Paul Giamatti and Jean-Claude Van Damme respectively, played themselves in fictional Hollywood scripts. These performances may be seen as the ultimate in method acting because even though they’re playing themselves, they are still working off a script. I would argue that “Jersey Shore” is an even better example of the method in use, because the emotions on display in the “Jersey Shore” are as real as they come. The smiting that Ronnie gave that preppy kid on the boardwalk is done with genuine wrath. The characters (and they are characters) on the “Jersey Shore” never have to feign lust, anger, shame, or embarrassment. They just feel those emotions and get immortalized on film. The only difference between the Paul Giamatti of “Cold Souls” and the Situation of “Jersey Shore” (besides maybe talent and the use of hair products) is the amount of influence the producer and editor have on the character’s development. That is why “Jersey Shore” is method acting by committee, and the best on TV.

Matthew Strickland is a senior at Drexel University. He studies English and Philosophy, and is anticipated to graduate in March of 2010.