If there’s one sportsman on the planet who’s almost impossible to understand, it’s disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, one of the architects of the biggest cheating scandals ever in professional sport.

So for the film, bring on the method. In order to inhabit Armstrong's psyche, Ben Foster, who plays Armstrong in The Program, did what Armstrong did best: he doped. Foster has gone to various lengths to understand his characters, pushing boundaries to gain empathy. In 2011's Rampart, Foster had a role as a homeless veteran for which he prepared by living on the streets.

Tales of method acting can veer from gimmicky (Daniel Day-Lewis texting as Abraham Lincoln during the filming of that biopic), to physical transformation (Rooney Mara pierced her nipples for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, as well as her lip, ears, eyebrow and nose). But when Constantin Stanislavski's techniques were adopted and adapted by acting teachers in the US, the "method" was really about creating a truth on stage, where the actor inhabits the character, and the character inhabits the actor.

Foster wouldn't go into great detail about the drugs he took. "For my own investigation it was important for me privately to understand it," he told the Guardian. "And they work," he said of the drugs.

Method Masters
Christian Bale is often cited as a method master, going on an extreme yo-yo diet between two of his roles, dropping to under nine stone for The Machinist before gaining a huge amount of muscle for Batman Begins a few months later. Mind you, Bale's tantrum on the set of Terminator Salvation would indicate that he's an actor who might be good at the physical side of method, but not so much at staying in character.

Method acting also causes a bit of an issue for those around you, like when Meryl Streep froze Anne Hathaway out for the duration of filming The Devil Wears Prada. That's not to mention those off-set examples, such as when Kate Winslet struggled to get her character in The Reader – a former Nazi concentration camp guard – out of her mind, a process that included reading bedtime stories to her children in a German accent.

But Day-Lewis is the ultimate method junkie. He built a canoe and trapped animals as prep for The Last of the Mohicans; he broke two ribs after refusing to remove himself from a wheelchair for the duration of filming My Left Foot. Robert De Niro deserves a decent shout for moving to Sicily before filming Godfather II and for getting a taxi driver's licence and picking up fares around New York during Taxi Driver.

Heath Ledger was said to have become unnervingly obsessed with his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight, and would hang around the set during off days. He died a few months after filming, after taking a combination of prescription drugs.

[ Read Tara Brady's review of The ProgramOpens in new window ]