In the world of acting, it's easy to take things a step too far. The emotional and physical investment actors dedicate to their roles can often leave them feeling broken inside. These stars dove into their roles without realizing the toll it would take on them later. Sometimes, you have to wonder—just how far would you push yourself to achieve a flawless performance?
Shelley Duvall in The Shining
The Shining is widely regarded as one of the best films of its genre, but Shelley Duvall's experience on set was a total nightmare. Kubrick, whose sole mission was seemingly to fracture Duvall's psyche, spent the duration of their time together ruthlessly berating her. Kubrick tormented Duvall, telling the cast and crew not to interact or sympathize with her and regularly criticizing her acting skills. The movie was shot in chronological order—meaning that Duvall's unraveling took place both on-screen and in real life.
For weeks, Kubrick pushed Duvall to the brink of sanity. Duvall was forced to cry so often and for such great lengths of time that she had to keep a water bottle nearby to stay hydrated. Her hair was falling out in clumps. Still, Kubrick didn't care—he made Duvall perform a record-setting 127 takes of the baseball bat scene. Duvall's co-star Jack Nicholson credited her with "the toughest job that any actor I've seen had, because forty percent of that movie, she's hysterical," but he believed that perhaps there was a method to Kubrick's madness.
"He beat Shelley into that performance," Nicholson said. "If that was me, I don't know what I would do. I do not. I still wonder. You're supposed to be able to do it, but for four months? But she did. She's brilliant in the movie."
Val Kilmer, The Doors
Val Kilmer dove into some serious research for the role of rock legend Jim Morrison for Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors. Kilmer learned how to sing 50 songs by The Doors. He spent hours in the studio studying Morrison's performances, observing hours upon hours of interview footage—all in the name of capturing his essence.
Kilmer asked the cast and crew to exclusively refer to him as Jim; many members claimed that it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between Kilmer's and Morrison's singing voices. Kilmer was so invested in the role that once production came to an end, he had to go to therapy just to disconnect himself from the character. Paul Rothchild, a rock producer who knew Morrison personally, said that Kilmer "knows Jim Morrison better than Jim ever knew himself."
Gregory Peck in The Omen
The set of 1976's The Omen was the site of many haunted happenings. It has been noted as one of the most cursed sets in history—producer Harvey Bernhard even carried a cross around with him. Bernhard said, "The devil was at work, and he didn't want that film made."
The film, which was centered around the antichrist, nearly drove everyone on set past the point of sanity. Gregory Peck's son shot himself only two months prior to production, and his plane was later struck by lightning. Bizarrely enough, the same exact thing happened to film's executive producer, Mace Neufeld.
For what it's worth, Bernhard may have been right. The day after shooting a safari park scene, an animal handler was mauled by a tiger. The assistant of special effects artist John Richardson was beheaded in a car crash that transpired nearby a road sign that read "Ommen, 66.6 km." Finally, the crew avoided a fiery death by the skin of their teeth—they didn't take the plane that was originally scheduled for aerial shots, which crashed and killed everyone on board.
Adrian Brody in The Pianist
Adrian Brody went through both a tremendous physical and emotional transformation to play Wladyslaw Szpilman, a real-life pianist and Holocaust survivor. The role earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor, but it came at a price.
Brody went on a crash diet in order to depict Szpilman, who would have been starving at the time. For six weeks, Brody consumed two boiled eggs for breakfast, a small amount of chicken for lunch, and chicken or fish with steamed vegetables for dinner. Brody was 6'5", but at his lightest, he weighed only 130 pounds.
Aside from the grueling physical aspect of the role, Brody gave up everything in his life. He sold his car and apartment, disconnected his phones, and moved to Europe. While the isolation was difficult, Brody said that the emotional effect of starvation was the biggest hurdle for him.
"I was depressed for a year after The Pianist. And I don't suffer from that, generally. It wasn't just a depression; it was a mourning," Brody told IndieWire.
Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a classic of the genre. Wes Craven introduced a villain that would go on to become one of the most iconic antagonists in cinema history, but he struggled to get the project off the ground. Craven told Filmmaker magazine that many studios were "afraid of making a film that had blood in it." Fortunately, New Line Cinema took a chance on the venture, and Heather Langenkamp was cast as Nancy Thompson—but Langenkamp wasn't prepared for what awaited her on the other side of stardom.
Langenkamp was led into a "chamber of horrors." The bathtub scene, in particular, was one of the hardest for Langenkamp to film.
Craven modified the tub so that a man in a scuba suit was able to lay beneath Langenkamp and make it appear as though Krueger's hand was emerging from between Nancy's legs. "So Jim [Doyle, VFX engineer] is blindly plunging that thing between my legs," Langenkamp recalled. "One time it's too far to the right, next time it's too far to the left, then it's way too fast—and Wes just patiently waited until he got the take that he wanted."
Bill Skarsgård in It
It's not easy to capture the unique essence of Pennywise, the terrifying clown who terrorized children in the 2017 film adaptation of Stephen King's It. Skarsgård had a difficult time donning the clown suit and was relieved when production finally wrapped. He told Entertainment Weekly that he had a "destructive relationship" with Pennywise, finding it burdensome to enter the mindset of a killer clown. However, Skarsgård found that Pennywise seemed to linger with him long after he left the set.
Skarsgård said that he returned home only to start experiencing "very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams." He explained to EW that Pennywise was visiting him in his sleep: "Every night, he came and visited. It was in the shape of either me dealing with him, sort of Pennywise as a separate entity of me, and then also me as Pennywise in circumstances that I didn't appreciate. Like, I'm Pennywise and I'm really upset that I'm out in public and people are looking at me."
Regardless of this creepy phenomenon, Skarsgård reprised the role in It: Chapter Two.
Liv Tyler in The Strangers
Regardless of its mixed reviews, The Strangers made a box office profit nearly nine times over its $9 million budget. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a couple on whose romantic getaway goes awry after three masked strangers decide to wreak havoc on their lives. Tyler and Speedman's performances was lauded by Variety for "credibly registering every hue of panic," but accoridng to Tyler, that panic was all too real.
Tyler was legitimately terrified on set. "That's what is so real about The Strangers," she said. "Like, you'd be in bed at night trying to relax, and all of a sudden you hear a noise and you go, 'What was that!' And you wonder, are you brave enough to go check or not? Imagine if you went to look, and there's a person in a mask standing in your living room with a butcher knife!"
Laura Margolis, who played the "Pin-Up Girl" torturer, revealed that she had been specifically instructed not to tell Tyler see her without the mask prior to shooting: "She didn't want to have to fake it, and so it was my responsibility to really scare her."
Margot Robbie in I, Tonya
Margot Robbie has no problem embracing hysteria—see Harley Quinn a la Suicide Squad or Birds of Prey—but she had difficulty portraying Tonya Harding, the figure skater whose involvement with Nancy Kerrigan's assault destroyed her career. Robbie needed weekly MRI scans after herniating a disc in her neck, but Robbie's physical health was far from her main concern. Robbie became so enmeshed with Harding's persona that she had difficulty establishing fiction from reality.
"I had lost my mind," Robbie told Grazia, describing the deterioration of her mental health. "I genuinely thought [Sebastian Stan and I] were these people and we were off the set, running down the street screaming at each other and the cameras are running after us," Robbie said. She sprinted down the street and Stan went after her; when she saw him approaching, Robbie socked him right in the head.
Stan played Jeff Gillooly, Harding's ex-husband. Robbie admitted that the "abusive relationship" depicted between herself and Stan emotionally traumatized her.
Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight landed him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, but Ledger never got to claim the award. He passed away suddenly in 2008. The actor was only 28 years old.
Ledger pushed himself further than he had ever gone for a role. In the years following his passing, it was speculated that the mental and physical exhaustion of preparing for the role had contributed to Ledger's demise. Members of his family vehemently disagree with this theory—but it's hard to deny that Ledger may have embodied the Joker beyond the point of return.
Prior to filming, Ledger isolated himself from reality, locking himself in a hotel room for weeks. During this period, Ledger maintained a disturbing diary in order to enter "the realm of a psychopath." The role was immensely challenging and Ledger was forced to break down any boundaries between himself and the Joker. Even after production had ceased, Ledger had trouble separating himself from the character.
Vera Farmiga in The Conjuring
Prior to signing on for The Conjuring, Vera Farmiga knew little of her character's past. Ed and Lorraine Warren were real-life paranormal investigators who were associated with high-profile hauntings. On the night Farmiga began researching Warren's work, she ended a phone call with director James Wan and opened her laptop only to be met with "three digital claw marks, from the upper right diagonal to the lower left."
The day after Farmiga finished shooting The Conjuring, she returned back to her home in New York and woke up to find similar markings on her thigh.
"It was these three very distinct—what looks like claw marks—that long nails or long fingertips could make," she said. Farmiga tried not to dwell on the incident too heavily, but she did believe that "there's clear evidence of some strangeness that's occurred. My husband did not do that to me. I did not scratch some mosquito bite. It's inexplicable."
Patrick Wilson in The Conjuring 2
Patrick Wilson is no stranger to the horror gene. He's made appearances in all sorts of freaky flicks, like the Insidious franchise, Bone Tomahawk, Hard Candy, and of courrse, The Conjuring series. Although he got through the first movie without issue, The Conjuring 2 gave Wilson a run for his money. Apparently, in the midst of production, an enormous floor-to-ceiling curtain started moving despite the lack of fans, doors, or open windows on set. "You didn't even hear any hair, but you watched these curtains sort of violently going," he said.
The incident scared the heebie-jeebies out of the cast and crew. Eventually, they even had a priest come and bless the set. Wilson admits that although he's a bit of a skeptic, the moment was "pretty trippy" to observe. Since working on these supernatural projects, Wilson thinks that his own house may now be haunted.
"I've heard people on two different occasions say they've heard kids' laughter in the middle of the night in my house," Wilson told The Independent.
Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Bob Hoskins had a long and noteworthy career, but he's best remembered for his portrayal of P.I. Eddie Valiant, the alcoholic gumshoe in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Hoskins spent hours each day talking and acting with his imaginary co-stars. Spending eight months communicating with fictional characters would take a toll on anyone's psyche, and Hoskins wasn't immune.
In order to perfect his performance, Hoskins "learned how to hallucinate" that Roger and the other characters were actually present. By the time filming had ended, Hoskins often found himself speaking aloud empty rooms, even hallucinating that Roger Rabbit was in there alongside him. Hoskins was then advised by his doctor to take a hiatus from acting while he reoriented himself.
Kit Harington in Game of Thrones
None of the actors who auditioned on Game of Thrones could have predicted the success of the show, but Kit Harington was by far under the most pressure. Harington's character, Jon Snow, evolved into the closest approximation to the show's central protagonist—and Harington had a hard time handling the stress.
"It wasn't a very good time in my life," Harington told Variety. "I felt I had to feel that I was the most fortunate person in the world, when actually, I felt very vulnerable."
"I had a shaky time in my life around there—like I think a lot of people do in their 20s," he continued. "That was a time when I started therapy and started talking to people. I had felt very unsafe, and I wasn't talking to anyone."
Not long after production on the final season had wrapped, Harington checked himself into a "wellness retreat," where he worked on "personal issues." According to Page Six, the actor sought help for exhaustion, stress, and alcohol abuse.
Ryan Reynolds in The Amityville Horror
The 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror gave way to some serious superstition. A number of bizarre occurrences slowed production, such as a dead fisherman that washed up on shore right as the cast and crew were about to begin filming. Just before the press tour kicked off, Ronald DeFeo Jr., the inspiration for Reynolds' character George Lutz, passed away.
"I think a lot of people make that stuff up to sell their movie, but there was some weird stuff that happened," Reynolds said. He added that most of the cast and crew were waking up at 3:15 a.m., which is when the Amityville murders happened. Reynolds also hated everything about the house where the movie was filmed.
"It's terrifying," he said. "You walk up and it's just upsetting. There's something about the house that's upsetting. There's something about the colors around it. Everything was just a little upsetting."
Dylan O'Brien in The Maze Runner
In 2016, Dylan O'Brien suffered an accident on the set of The Maze Runner that could have ruined not only his career, but his self-esteem. O'Brien was performing a stunt that went tragically wrong—he was reportedly thrown from one vehicle and hit by another. The actor was left with a concussion and a severe facial fracture, which left him in a "really fragile, vulnerable state."
O'Brien said it was a "rough year," but he credits his girlfriend and family for assisting him with his quick recovery.
"The first time I saw my face I was like, 'That's it,'" he said. "Spending that six months out of it and in recovery so far away from it, you're in a state of questioning everything. I absolutely went through a period of not knowing what my future was going to be."
Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins' legendary performance as prolific serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter scared the socks off more than just the audience. Although Hopkins met with Jodie Foster prior to filming for a table read, she was so terrified of him afterward that she refused to say another word to him off-camera for the duration of production. Foster went out of her way to dodge Hopkins: "We got to the end of the movie and really never had a conversation," she said. "I avoided him as best as I could."
Hopkins took home an Academy Award for Best Actor, but behind the scenes, he nowhere near as cool or collected as his performance had made him seem. On the final day of shooting, Hopkins approached Foster, who had a tear in her eye. She said, "I was really scared of you," to which he replied, "I was really scared of you!" Turns out that everything isn't what it appears to be on the silver screen.
Sarah Paulson in The People vs. O.J. Simpson and American Horror Story
Sarah Paulson earned significant critical acclaim for her performances on both American Horror Story and The People vs. O.J. Simpson, but with Paulson's success came a nasty habit: both roles required Paulson to smoke cigarettes. Paulson didn't smoke—at least, until she developed a craving on set.
Once the initial disgust of her first few cigarettes wore off, Paulson found herself looking forward to the scenes that required her to smoke. Marcia Clark, who Paulson was portraying in The People vs. O.J. Simpson, was a known chair-smoker in real life—which didn't bode well for the actress. Paulson said the ordeal was "a real situation."
Jeffrey Dean Morgan in The Possession
He may be tough as nails in The Walking Dead, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan had quite the fright on the st of The Possession. He and his co-stars were so disturbed by the real story of the dybbuk box that they did everything in their power to keep any malicious spirits away. Although Morgan described himself as a skeptic, he admitted that there were a number of unexplained happenings on set.
"Lots of lightbulbs exploding," Morgan said. "Just overall kind of creepiness... 'Don't mock the box' was sort of the mantra that we lived by while filming this."
The real dybbuk box in question was the subject of a 1994 Los Angeles Times article, which served as inspiration for the film. When someone offered to bring it to set, Morgan flat-out refused, unwilling to risk the potential consequences: "If you go and loook at what has happened to people that have had contact with an actual dybbuk box, it's not good stuff... why risk that?"
Johnny Depp, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Johnny Depp leaped on the opportunity to depict Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, whom he considered a personal hero. In preparation for the film, Depp sought to learn everything he could about Thompson's mannerisms and lifestyle. He moved into Thompson's basement to get as close to the journalist as possible.
By the time production began, it seemed like Depp had fully adhered himself to Thompson's character. Depp and Benicio del Toro were so committed to their roles that the cast and crew thought they might actually be on acid, and Depp remained in "Thompson mode" until over a year after filming wrapped. The two remained close until Thompson took his own life in 2005; Depp allegedly paid $3 million to shoot Thompson's remains from a cannon.
Marilyn Burns in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Tobe Hooper was a ruthless writer-director on this project. When Texas Chain Saw Massacre hit the big screen, people were literally frightened out of their seats—but he also managed to freak out the entire cast. In order to capture their authentic reactions, Hooper made the executive decision to conceal Leatherface's grotesque features until it was time to start rolling.
Poor Sally (Marilyn Burns) had no idea what was coming at the dinner table. Hooper confirmed that the dinner scene was ultimately the most intense segment of the film, and the cast and crew had all gone "slightly insane by then."
"The whole dinner scene is burned into my memory," Hooper said. "I just think because of the misery of it. At that point, we were really just on the verge of mental collapse. And Marilyn told me how awful it was for her because she was terrified—just being tied to a chair and then having these men looming over her constantly, she said it was really unnerving."
Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
Did you know that Keira Knightley was only 17 when she starred in the first installment of Pirates of the Caribbean? Knightley was fast-tracked straight to stardom, but the teenager wasn't ready for the spotlight. "It's amazing looking back at it from the outside—you're like, 'Whoa, that was hit after hit,'" she said. "But, from the inside, all you're hearing is the criticism. I literally felt like I was worthless."
After being thrust into the deep end, Knightley removed herself from the public eye for a full year, becoming a recluse to avoid being hounded by paparazzi at every turn. Knightley holed up in her house for three months at a time.
Knightley returned to work, but she had developed PTSD in the interim. Despite having won an Academy Award for Best Actress for Pride and Prejudice, Knightley couldn't help but feel like a fraud. She even underwent hypnotherapy to prevent panic attacks prior to the 2008 BAFTAs.
"I felt pretty much like actually I didn't exist and I was this weird creature with this weird face that people seemed to respond to in quite an extreme way," Knightley recalled.
Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther
Black Panther was a global sensation, earning over a billion dollars. Michael B. Jordan played one of Marvel's most memorable villains, Erik Killmonger, a war-hungry Wakandan usurper. Although many fans sympathized with Killmonger, the role took quite a toll on Jordan, who wasn't used to playing the antagonist.
"I was never in a character for that long of a period of time and was, I guess, that dark, that lonely, that painful," Jordan confessed on The Bill Simmons Podcast.
He attempted to return to "business as usual" after filming had ended, but it wasn't that easy. Eventually, Jordan started seeing a therapist to help remove himself from the gloomy mindset.
"I found myself kind of in the routine of being isolated and went out of my way to make sure I was by myself," he continued. "Once I got finished wrapping the movie, it took me some time to talk through how I was feeling and why I was feeling so sad and like, a little bit depressed."
James Cromwell, Babe
In 1995, James Cromwell's experience on the set of Babe transformed his life in more ways than one. Before the film, Cromwell had toyed with the idea of vegetarianism, but he soon realized that wasn't enough. Cromwell described the turning point during production that led him to veganism: watching a piglet be placed on a patch of grass.
"When that little pig was put down on that big pitch and saw the blue sky and the green grass and the sea, that pig just took off," Cromwell told Vice. "I said, 'I don't want any part of this. I am out.'"
Since starring in Babe, Cromwell has become an outspoken environmental activist and supporter of animal rights, even leading to multiple arrests in the name of the cause. He especially loves pigs, who have obviously earned a special place in his heart.
Colin Firth in The King's Speech
To depict George VI, the future King of England, Colin Firth had to work with a vocal coach and study recordings of George VI in order to mimic his speech patterns, mannerisms, and nervous tics. In real life, George VI never really overcame his stutter—and Firth nearly developed one himself.
Nearly a year after the film's premiere, Firth admitted in an interview that his role on The King's Speech had left him with a minor speech impediment, occasionally lapsing into a stammer during casual conversation. Fortunately, he appears to have hammered it out in the years since.
Isabelle Adjani, Possession
The subway scene in Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 Possession is recognized as a quintessential piece of body horror by horror buffs everywhere. If you haven't watched it yet, bear in mind, it's not for the faint of heart—or the weak of stomach.
Adjani won a César Award for her portrayal of Anna, but the role was so physically and emotionally draining that it permanently traumatized the actress. She later told a French magazine that she would never perform a similar role again, saying that it took her "years of therapy" to recover from the experience.
Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant
It was a running joke for years that Leo would never win an Oscar, but the commitment he demonstrated in The Revenant finally earned him long-awaited recognition from the Academy. To prepare for the role, DiCaprio slept inside dead animal carcasses to survive the cold, consumed raw bison meat, and regularly swam in frozen lakes.
"If a cat has nine lives, I think I've used a few," he told Wired.
Janet Leigh in Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock may have revolutionized the horror industry, but the director was notorious for terrorizing women in his films. Although you mind consider Psycho a classic staple of the genre, Janet Leigh was deeply traumatized from her experience on set. Leigh, who played Marion Crane, developed a phobia of showers after she was "stabbed" in the now-infamous scene. Leigh only took baths after working on the movie, always making sure to keep the curtain drawn back. She faced the door at all times.
Tippi Hedren in The Birds
In the final scene of Hitchcock's The Birds, Tippi Hedren is attacked by droves of birds. There's a reason that Hedren's performance is so convincing: it's because she wasn't acting. Without warning, Hitchcock launched dozens of birds at Hedren to record her authentic reaction. Hedren later said that Hitchcock put her in a "mental prison." He had promised Hedren that the birds would be mechanical; instead, Hedren was pelted with actual birds, who pecked and battered her day after day.
Keanu Reeves in The Matrix
The set of The Matrix was allegedly cursed. Actress and singer Aaliyah, who had been cast in the role of Zee, died in a plane crash at the age of 22. Gloria Foster, who played The Oracle, also passed away. Keanu Reeves' girlfriend Jennifer Syme gave birth to a stillborn; the two broke up soon afterward, but she lost her life in a car accident right after filming wrapped. Reeves' sister also went through another battle with leukemia, which postponed production. In fact, the movie was so close to shutting down entirely that Reeves spent $24 million of his own salary to keep the cameras rolling.
Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby
Mia Farrow suffered just as much as her character in Rosemary's Baby. For one particular scene, Farrow, a vegetarian, was forced to eat a piece of raw liver by director Roman Polanski. That may seem gross enough, but Polanski didn't just make her do it once—Farrow was forced to eat the liver over and over again until Polanski was satisfied with the shot.
Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project
The cast of The Blair Witch Project had no idea what they were getting themselves into. The actors were basically dumped in the woods and tormented relentlessly for eight days straight. In order to elicit an authentic reaction, the directors stalked the actors during the day and shook their tents at night. They also fed them less and less food each day so they would become increasingly more delirious.
However, due to the film's unusual marketing strategy, Heather Donahue had to pretend to be dead. "My obituary was published when I was 24," she wrote in The Guardian. "It's a complicated thing to be dead when you're still very much alive and eager to make a name for yourself."
Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables
Anne Hathaway really lived up to the title in Les Misérables. In order to lose weight for the role, Hathaway stuck to a strict diet of dried oatmeal paste. She also banished her husband to the U.S. so she could further envelop herself in the character's dark mental space. Her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" brought critics to tears and earned her an Academy Award nomination, but Hathaway spent the majority of filming in a state of psychological torment.
JoBeth Williams in Poltergeist
Poltergeist was regarded as one of the most haunted movie sets in history—perhaps because it involved literal dead bodies. Steven Spielberg insisted on using real human cadavers as props for the film, and JoBeth Williams was horrified to learn that the remains bobbing beside her in the pool were once very much alive.
Day after day, Williams would come home from shooting each night to find that all of the paintings on her walls were crooked. She convinced herself that it was all in her head, but she was still undeniably freaked out about the bad juju associated with Poltergeist.
George Clooney in Syriana
Although it wasn't highly publicized at the time, George Clooney nearly lost his life on the set of Syriana. The actor was badly injured in a stunt gone wrong—he broke his back, and the injury was so painful that he considered suicide.
"I was at a point where I thought, 'I can't exist like this. I can't actually live,'" he told Huffington Post. "I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm, unable to move, having these headaches where it feels like you're having a stroke, and for a short three-week period, I started to think, 'I may have to do something drastic about this.'"
Veronica Cartwright in Alien
If the chest-bursting scene in Alien shocked and disturbed you, then imagine how it felt for the cast. Director Ridley Scott had opted to keep them in the dark about the scene in order to make sure their reactions were authentic. "If an actor is just acting terrified, you can't get the genuine look of raw, animal fear," he said.
Sigourney Weaver said that she was so worried about John Hurt that she forgot they were even filming a movie; Veronica Cartwright passed out cold as soon as the blood hit her. "You see this thing start to come out, so we all get sucked in, we lean forward to check it out... all of a sudden it comes out. I tell you, none of us expected it. It came out and twisted round," she recalled.
Maika Monroe in It Follows
Maika Monroe starred as Jay Height in the critically acclaimed horror film It Follows. Although the acress grew up immersed in the world of horror, she couldn't have predicted just how draining it was to be part of such a production. "It was a very difficult shoot," she said. "Every day was another battle to face just in terms of acting and the screaming and crying and running. All of that every day is very tiresome."
Monroe added that the crew would shoot through the night for 12 hours straight in "very creepy" locations, noting specifically how hard it was for her to endure the wheelchair scene, which took place on the last day of filming.
Isla Fisher in Now You See Me
Now You See Me may have been a magical moviegoing experience, but Isla Fisher had a less-than-enchanting incident behind the scenes. During the scene where Fisher's character Hensley is submerged in a tank of water and starts to drown. However, Fisher was supposed to be able to release herself.
"My chain got stuck," Fisher revealed. "I had to swim to the bottom; I couldn't get up. Everyone thought I was acting fabulously. I was actually drowning. No one realized I was actually struggling."
Thankfully, the crew eventually realized that Fisher was in actual danger and pulled the safety latched.
Linda Blair inThe Exorcist
Linda Blair was only 13 years old when she found herself faced with endless questions about God, possession, faith and Catholicism following the release of The Exorcist in 1973.
"To me, The Exorcist was a work of fiction," she said. "I didn't realize then that it dealt with anything in reality, and so when the press kept asking me about all the devil stuff, it just kept adding to the pressure I was under, and it was just an awful thing to go through as a teenager."
Diane Kruger in Inglorious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to taking things too far. Diane Kruger played Bridget von Hammersmark, a film actress in Nazi Germany and a spy for the Allies in 2009's Inglorious Basterds. During the scene in which her character is strangled, something went grievously wrong: Tarantino didn't want Kruger to be in any more danger than necessary, so he chose to choke the actress himself, but he didn't yell "cut" in time. Kruger passed out from lack of oxygen.
Kruger later spoke about the incident, recognizing that it was an accident and asserting that working with Tarantino was nothing other than "pure joy."
Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games
Jennifer Lawrence rose to fame through her role as Katniss Everdeen in the film adaptation of The Hunger Games. Despite Lawrence's success, she didn't leave the franchise unscathed. While filming a scene where her character sprints through a tunnel, one of the fog machines on set malfunctioned and filled the tunnel with smoke—nearly suffocating Lawrence to death.
Martin Sheen and Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now
Although Apocalypse Now reached critical acclaim, it was a total nightmare to film. Harvey Keitel had to be replaced after two weeks and everyone on set was struck with a variety of tropical diseases. Marlon Brando had gained a tremendous amount of weight without telling anyone, didn't read the script, would only be shot in shadow, and attempted to improvise all of his lines. Director Francis Ford Coppola had a seizure followed by a nervous breakdown and threats of suicide. As for Martin Sheen, he suffered a heart attack in the sweltering jungle and had to crawl away for help.
Although the film was a roaring success, it nearly cost and cast and crew their sanity.
Malcolm Dowell in A Clockwork Orange
For the infamous scene in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange where Alex was brainwashed, actor Malcolm McDowell really did have to keep his eyes pinned open for every single take. Unfortunately, McDowell paid a high price: the device scratched his cornea and caused him to suffer from temporary blindness. McDowell also cracked his ribs during the filming of the humiliation stage show.
Kyle Richards in Halloween
You might recognize Kyle Richards from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but before Richards made a name for herself on reality television, she was a child actress in John Carpenter's Halloween at the age of 9. After viewing the slasher film's premiere, Richards was so scared that she had to sleep with her mom until the age of 15, haunted by the possibility of someone hiding under her bed or behind the curtains. It goes without saying that Richards never pursued another role within the genre.
Ellen Sandweiss in The Evil Dead
When Ellen Sandweiss agreed to participate in the 1979 horror flick The Evil Dead, she didn't know what she was getting herself into. "That scene initially was supposed to just be a 'tree attack' scene, the rape part kind of evolved as we were shooting it," Sandweiss said. "It was pretty grueling, shooting in the cold, in the middle of the night, getting scraped up by trees, not a whole lot of fun. People were quite shocked when they saw it, but not quite as shocked as I was."
Sandweiss wasn't the only one who felt the film was a grueling work of art: The Evil Dead was banned in the UK until the year 2000.
Amanda Wyss in A Nightmare on Elm Street
Heather Langenkamp wasn't the only one who had a hard time on the set of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Amanda Wyss played Tina Grey, the first teen to die on screen. For Wyss, however, it didn't feel like movie magic.
"The first spin around [the room] felt like I was falling, even though I was on the floor. Then I felt that if I wasn’t falling, everything was going to fall on me. It was terrible. We had to stop. The terror in my death scene was 75 percent real."
Jim Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ
They say that lightning never strikes twice, but those on the set of The Passion of the Christ witnessed differently. Assistant director Jan Michelini was struck by lightning twice during filming, but he wasn't the only one with sour luck. Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus, had flesh torn from his body during the fake whipping scene and dislocated his shoulder while carrying the wooden cross. Not only that, but Caviezel was also struck by lightning. Seriously.
It got worse: Caviezel suffered from both hypothermia and a lung infection, which landed him in the hospital with pneumonia. The makeup they used on set gave him severe migraines and a skin infection. Take a hint, buddy. Someone really didn't want you to play this role.
Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz
That's right—your favorite childhood classic was actually the site of some horrific happenings for the cast and crew of The Wizard of Oz. At the start of filming, Buddy Ebsen, the original Tin Man, had to spend two weeks recovering in an oxygen tent after aluminum dust from his makeup coated his lungs. Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion, was also forced to wear a 90-pound costume made of actual lion skin in 100-degree weather.
Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, had the worst experience on set. Her costume caught fire in the midst of a stunt gone awry, scalding the actress with second- and third-degree burns. Her copper-based green makeup only inflamed her injuries. Hamilton's stunt double also suffered burns and scarring on her legs when something exploded on set. Talk about cursed.
Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Natalie Portman endured a particularly punishing training regimen for Black Swan—in fact, she pushed herself so far that she felt like she was on the verge of death. Portman dislocated a rib during her 8-hour daily rehearsals and lost 20 pounds for the role, surviving solely on a diet of carrots and almonds. Portman, much like her character, was desperate to achieve perfection. She won an Oscar for her performance, but at a cost: "There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die," she said.
Drew Barrymore in Scream
Drew Barrymore played an iconic role in the opening scene of Scream, but the actress was actually just as worked up behind the scenes as she was on-screen. Barrymore knew how to get her adrenaline pumping in preparation for the week-long shoot: she told Wes Craven her "secrets," which he would then relay to her in private to make her cry. Barrymore wanted to hyperventilate, and day after day, Craven managed to prod her into sobbing and shrieking and sprinting all over the set.
"It was intense," she said. "I remember driving home the night I wrapped and I was beat. I was exhausted."