Acting : Emotion based acting by Garrett Thierry

His method works well. There is a good reason people still use it so many years later. My approach is to take bits and pieces from every method and combine whatever works for me.

The best book I've read on acting is "Acting and How to be Good At It" by Basil Hoffman. His thinking is similar and the book is very down to earth and practical. It is chock full ideas that are clear and can immediately be applied. (It is even available as an iBook or eBook) I mention it because your question made me thing of what he calls "autobiographical" actors; those who always think about what they would do as the character. Their limitation is that they can only play who they are (the flip side it you will always know what you will get). He also talks about "slick" actors; this who play a stereotype of a character. They are unable to act through the development of the character over the course of events. The point is that accepting your character, really knowing their backstory and building a psychology for them is what allows you to embody them in each moment as the story unfolds.

Sometimes I genuinely forget that I'm acting. At some point I'm just doing what my character is doing. The other day I got carried away because my sister was missing and I suspect she was murdered. I don't have a sister, but my character did.

I think ultimately you work with whatever method works for you. I love Chekhov, for example. Sometimes, imagining I'm a bird or that I've got a stomach full of lava really gets to me in a place that my Stanislavski or Adler prep can't reach. But of course, other times I can't get there unless I have ten pages of backstory worked out. I don't think there's one right way to get there. One place, many paths and all that.