15 Actors Who Went to Seriously Extreme Measures for a Role
In the Coen brothers' latest, Hail, Caesar!, out this weekend, Channing Tatum performs a six-minute tap dancing number. Although the actor obviously has mad dance skills (see Magic Mike for hard evidence), Tatum didn't know how to kick-ball-change. Like, at all. So he spent three months preparing for the one scene. Of the intense preparation, Tatum told New York: "It's the most I've ever prepped for a six-minute section in a movie…When I'm nervous about something, I drill it to a point that is probably unhealthy, but as long as it works even halfway, I'm happy at the end of the tortuous day." And he's certainly not the first actor to undergo massive preparation for a movie role: Many actors take their roles so seriously that they undergo extreme bodily transformations or spend months learning one esoteric skill. In honor of Tatum's newfound tap prowess, we've recounted 15 actors who went all-in for their parts:
Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers in Black Swan
The Prep: Portman trained with former New York City Ballet dancer Mary Helen Bowers for up to eight hours a day, six days a week, for over a year ahead of the shooting the film. Bowers also had Portman, who studied ballet as a kid, supplement dance classes with swimming, cross-training, and endurance exercises.
The Reasoning: The actress, who won an Oscar for the performance, wanted to execute [future husband] Benjamin Millepied's tricky choreography in the film herself. She told the New York Times, "I think there is a credibility that lets you get lost in the story when you feel that all the details are right."
Chris Pratt as Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy
The Prep: Pratt worked with nutritionist Phil Goglia and personal trainer Duffy Gaver to drop 60 pounds in six months.
The Reasoning: The actor had gained a lot of weight after shooting Zero Dark Thirty, which he attributed to overeating, and wanted to be fully ready to embody the comic book hero. He famously posted a fit selfie on Instagram after his effort and wrote, "Six months no beer."
Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist
The Prep: Brody gave up his apartment, sold his car, and moved to Europe with only two bags so he could get familiar with his character's discomfort. The actor, who won an Oscar for the role, also went on a crash diet and lost 30 pounds in six weeks, weighing 130 pounds at his lightest during shooting. He also took piano and dialect lessons.
The Reasoning: "There is an emptiness that comes with really starving that I hadn't experienced," Brody told BBC. "I couldn't have acted that without knowing it. I've experienced loss, I've experienced sadness in my life, but I didn't know the desperation that comes with hunger."
Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown in My Left Foot
The Prep: After spending time with disabled patients at the Sanymount School Clinic as research, Day-Lewis refused to leave his prop wheelchair and insisted on being carried around and spoon-fed by the crew. The end result? An Oscar and two broken ribs.
The Reasoning: The actor likes to get in the heads of his characters. "I have always been intrigued by these lives I have never experienced," he told The Independent. "And I love the pure pleasure of doing the work, no matter if that work involves some kind of discomfort."
Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass in The Revenant
The Prep: The actor immersed himself in the role by pretending to sleep in a horse carcass, eating raw buffalo meat, and hauling himself in and out of freezing cold rivers throughout the nine-month shoot.
The Reasoning: DiCaprio wanted to be as truthful as possible to the harrowing experience. "I certainly don't eat raw bison liver on a regular basis," he told Yahoo. "When you see the movie, you'll see my reaction to it, because [director] Alejandro [González Iñárritu] kept it in. It says it all. It was an instinctive reaction."
Shia LeBeouf as Boyd "Bible" Swan Fury
The Prep: The day after he scored the role, LeBeouf joined the U.S. National Guard, got baptized, got a tattoo, and became a chaplain's assistant to Captain Yates for the 41st Infantry. He spent a month living on a base and then went on to pull out a tooth and refrained from bathing for four months during filming.
The Reasoning: LeBeouf felt a strong commitment to the film. "Fury is the most meat I've ever had to chew on," he told Dazed. "[Director] David [Ayer] told us right from the gate: 'I need you to give me everything.'" As for the not bathing thing? "I met some tankers who told me that was just the way it was out there," he said. "Some guys had the same pair of socks on for three years."
Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray
The Prep: Foxx lost 30 pounds by fasting for a full week and then doing daily workouts and adhering to a strict diet. But the real commitment came during filming when Foxx agreed to wear prosthetic eyelids glued over his eyes to mimic Charles' blindness. It caused the actor to have panic attacks during the early weeks of shooting and crew members would sometimes leave him on set, forgetting he couldn't see. In addition, Foxx, who went on to win Oscar gold for the performance, learned to play all of the piano parts in the film.
The Reasoning: Director Taylor Hackford wanted Foxx to embrace the darkness Charles endured in his life. It worked. Foxx told the New York Times, "Imagine having your eyes glued shut for 14 hours a day. That's your jail sentence."
Anne Hathaway as Fantine in Les Misérables
The Prep: The actress, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for the role, dropped 25 pounds by following a near-starvation diet that consisted of two thin squares of dried oatmeal paste per day. She also had her head shaved for the part.
The Reasoning: Hathaway was caught up in the realism aspect of it all, despite the fact that she knows now it was extreme. "I had to be obsessive about it–the idea was to look near death," she told Vogue. "Looking back on the whole experience–and I don't judge it in any way–it was definitely a little nuts."
Halle Berry as Vivian in Jungle Fever
The Prep: For her first-ever film, Berry visited an actual crack den to play drug addicted Vivian. She also didn't bathe for ten days while shooting the film.
The Reasoning: Berry was going for accuracy in the role, but felt sorry for co-star Samuel L. Jackson who had to smell her throughout filming. "It's true. Ask Sam Jackson," she told Wendy Williams. "He had to get a whiff of it!"
Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Prep: Mara took her job very seriously in this film, hoping to meet fans' expectations of the literary heroine. She pierced her face and nipples (12 piercings in total), bleached her eyebrows, chopped off her hair, and lost weight. Mara also learned martial arts, how to skateboard and ride a motorcycle, and perfected a Swedish accent. The actress also wandered around Stockholm alone to feel Lisbeth's sense of isolation.
The Reasoning: The character felt very specific to director David Fincher, and he wanted to cast an actress who could become her in every aspect. Mara fit the bill. "David made it his mission to keep me in a very safe bubble while making the film," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "I didn't have to think of anything but the character."
Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry
The Prep: For several months before filming began, Swank, who won an Oscar for the role, went out in public dressed as a male, with her hair chopped off and her breasts bandaged to be flat. She practiced speaking in a low voice and introducing herself to people as "Hilary's brother James."
The Reasoning: Swank wanted to understand the reaction people have to someone who they perceive to be different. And it's the sort of prep she says she'll never be able to replicate. She told The Telegraph: "There was also something in that that I'll never have back again, which is that I wasn't famous. I didn't have a bunch of things to hide from. It wasn't that people were saying, 'Ha, you look a lot like that actress.' There was none of that. Now I can't go out and try out new characters on the street, because people would be like, What are you doing?'"
Matt Damon as Andrew Ilario in Courage Under Fire
The Prep: Damon lost 40 pounds through a strict self-imposed diet and training regimen. He ended up being put under medical supervision for months after filming ended because it messed with his health so badly.
The Reasoning: Damon wanted to fit the role, but later regretted his methods, telling The Sun, "I had to be thin and went on an unsupervised diet, which could have killed me. A doctor told me later I could have shrunk my heart permanently. It didn't do me any good."
Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos in Monster
The Prep: In addition to extensive research on Wuornos, the actress, who won an Oscar for the role, gained 30 pounds for the part. Her makeup artists transformed her skin and hair to reflect Wuornos' real-life appearance, making Theron almost unrecognizable.
The Reasoning: Theron felt she couldn't have done the movie without changing her appearance. "I don't know how I could have played that part with this body," she told Stumped. "I knew I had to transform my body to get myself into her physical skin–the way she moved in her body…I've tried very hard in my career to change and transform. But, I've never done anything like this."
50 Cent as Deon in All Things Fall Apart
The Prep: The rapper dropped a whopping 54 pounds for the role, going from 214 to 160 in nine weeks. He went on a liquid diet and spent three hours per day on a treadmill, eventually looking so emaciated some fans didn't believe the photos of him were real.
The Reasoning: "I was trying to lose as much as possible to be authentic to what I saw in my experience, because my motivation for the project was my best friend, Charles Pringle," the rapper told Rap-Up. "He lived across the street from me; he actually died of cancer. It's a serious topic."
Richard Gere as George in Time Out of Mind
The Prep: Gere had been working with the Coalition for Homeless for many years and was able to speak directly with many homeless New Yorkers ahead of shooting. Although reports that Gere pretended to be homeless to prepare for the role are exaggerated, the cameras were set away from him during the shots, causing some New Yorkers to genuinely react to Gere as a homeless man.
The Reasoning: The actor was more interested in raising awareness for the homeless than he was being a method actor. He responded to a photograph that went viral by saying, "While the story that accompanied the photograph was somewhat fictional (especially the $100 hand-outs), it seemed to have touched something important in people. I'd like to find out what that is and what we can do together to make something good and meaningful happen for our homeless brothers and sisters."
