“I Almost Had My Pepper Spray Out”: 10 Times “Method Actors” Made Work A Living Hell For Their Costars

1. The Weeknd’s The Idol costar Lily-Rose Depp revealed she’d “steer clear” of him on set when he was fully in character as Tedros, an abusive and sleazy night-club owner. She told Entertainment Weekly, “Sometimes when Abel would get — I don’t want to reveal too much about where Abel’s character goes, but when he would be in full Tedros mode sometimes — I would steer clear of him.”

2. Jared Leto famously sent his Suicide Squad costars a bunch of disgusting “gifts,” including dead animals, anal beads, and used condoms. He told E!, “I did a lot of things to create a dynamic, to create an element of surprise, of spontaneity, and to really break down any kind of walls that may be there. I mean, the Joker is somebody who doesn't really respect things like personal space or boundaries.” Naturally, a bunch of his costars called him out, including Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Will Smith, and Viola Davis.

Notably, Viola admitted she was left “scared” after Jared sent her a box of bullets. “It was a little worrisome. It made you a little bit nervous, and I'm pretty tough. You know, I got into a few fights when I was growing up...but it scared me a little bit,” she said, adding that she didn’t meet the “real” Jared until after filming had wrapped, when they attended the same event. “Before that I was only introduced to The Joker...and I almost had my pepper spray out. You know, 'You remember that bullet you sent me?’” she recalled.

3. Robert Pattinson admitted that he got on Willem Dafoe’s nerves on the set of The Lighthouse. Robert said that because he was playing “fucking psychotic” Ephraim Winslow, he felt it was OK to “be mad the whole time.” "You can literally just be sitting on the floor, growling and licking up puddles of mud...[I was] basically unconscious the whole time. It was crazy. I spent so much time making myself throw up. Pissing my pants. It's the most revolting thing. I don't know, maybe it's really annoying," he said.

"There's a scene where Willem's kind of sleeping on me, and we're really, really drunk. And I felt like we're completely lost in the scene, and I'm sitting there trying to make myself gag. And [the director] told me off because Willem's looking at him going, 'If he throws up on me, I'm leaving the set.' I had absolutely no idea this whole drama was unfolding," he said.

4. Brian Cox once said that he found his Succession costar Jeremy Strong’s method acting “fucking annoying.” For context, Jeremy has publicly shared that he refused to rehearse with his costars on the show because he wanted “every scene” to feel like he was “encountering a bear in the woods.” “I think you have to go through whatever the ordeal is that the character has to go through,” Jeremy said. “If I have any method at all, it is simply this: to clear away anything — anything — that is not the character and the circumstances of the scene … usually that means clearing away almost everything around and inside you, so that you can be a more complete vessel for the work at hand,” he shared in 2021.

5. Tyrese Gibson once claimed that his Annapolis costar James Franco “never snapped out of character” on set. “I respect method actors, but he never snapped out of character. Whenever we'd have to get in the ring for boxing scenes, and even during practice, the dude was full-on hitting me. I was always like, 'James, lighten up, man. We're just practicing.' He never lightened up,” he claimed.

James denied hitting Tyrese on purpose, telling GQ: “I take full blame for any problems on that film. If he had a bad experience working with me, I was probably a jerk. I was not purposely cruel to him, but I was probably so wrapped up in my performance that I was not as friendly as I could have been. This is such a stupid issue, I can't believe I'm still talking about it. But when I'm asked about it in the press, it makes it seem as if it's still an issue. I think Tyrese is a sweet guy with a good heart. I wish him all the best.”

6. Daniel Day-Lewis’s method acting for Phantom Thread seriously annoyed his costar Vicky Krieps, who told the Telegraph: “After half the movie, I was just really tired of it. Like, ‘OK, I get it. It's a game. I've played it. But can we just talk normally now, please?’”

7. Paul Giamatti once called out his Man on the Moon costar Jim Carrey’s “wacky” behavior on set. He said, “It was one of the weirdest experiences I've had making a movie, to be honest with you. It was just wacky. Jim was wacky during it. He did this whole thing where he was Andy Kaufman all the time when he was on set and when he was in the costume, and was Tony Clifton all the time when he was Tony Clifton…When he was Tony Clifton, he had cheese — Limburger cheese — in his pockets, so he smelled horrible. And he'd constantly be hugging people, and he had it all over his hands and stuff. It was disgusting. He was touching people and making them shake his hands all the time. He smelled horrible. Like, really bad. It was just weird. And that's the least of it.”

8. In 2022, Jesse Plemons called out his The Power of the Dog costar Benedict Cumberbatch for making a rude comment about him while in character. “There was one time he got under my skin. He was like, 'Hey, big boy.' It wasn't 'fatso.' I feel like a few people in life have been like, 'Hey, big boy,' and I was like, 'Goddamn it. What the fuck,’” he told Variety.

9. Meryl Streep once called out her Kramer vs. Kramer costar Dustin Hoffman for allegedly slapping her off-script without consent. She told the New York Times, “This is tricky because when you're an actor, you're in a scene, you have to feel free. I'm sure that I have inadvertently hurt people in physical scenes. But there's a certain amount of forgiveness in that. But this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping.”

10. And finally, I had to include Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments about an unnamed actor who made his on-set experience filming a Western quite “something” after they simply “weren’t washing” in a bid to stay in character. “It was quite something on set. That waft coming in every day,” he said.

If you can think of more examples, feel free to share in the comments!