Acting & Cinema
Becoming Someone Else
A taxi licence, a wheelchair, sixty pounds either way, and one character played twice
De Niro · Day-Lewis · Bale · Ledger · 4 chapters · 14 min read
A taxi licence, a wheelchair between takes, sixty pounds in either direction, and one character played twice to an Oscar.
Free to read: every chapter below is open
How actors disappear into a role
- 01The Cab LicenceOn a cab licence nobody in the audience would ever see, and what it was for.
- 02Staying in the ChairOn the actor who never left the wheelchair, and the fashion his reputation started.
- 03The Body as MaterialOn actors who use their own bodies as clay, and an awards system that pays them to.
- 04One Clown, Four DoorsOn one comic-book villain, four very different ways into him, and a myth that will not die.