Actors who carefully prepared for their roles, and those who neglected their preparation (24 photos)

All actors are different - some, in order to get used to the role, need to start preparing months before filming, improve their physical fitness or read a ton of literature, while others show up on the set and immediately transform into their character simply, for example, by gluing mustache. And at the same time, the former do not always play more convincingly than the latter...





1. Ana de Armas prepared for the role of Marilyn Monroe in the film “Blonde” for a whole year. The actress called it the most intense work of her career, as she spent a year studying the life of Marilyn Monroe, trying to master her accent, reading the necessary literature and having long conversations with the director, Andrew Dominik, for months. The filming itself lasted three months without a break.



2. At the same time, she did not have time to properly prepare for her role in No Time to Die, since the shooting of Blonde was unexpectedly postponed, and the actress was urgently called to London to film Bond. According to de Armas, she only had 10 days to train and prepare, and then, due to Daniel Craig's injury, filming of No Time to Die also had to be postponed. De Armas returned to the image of Marilyn Monroe for three months and immediately after that - to the image of a Bond girl, but by that time all preparation had already been forgotten.





3. To play the Mighty Thor in the film Thor: Love and Thunder, Natalie Portman had to train for 10 months. She had five workouts a week and didn't miss a single one. According to Portman, the filmmakers asked her to rock out as much as possible. She also worked with the stunt team to determine how Jane would move in combat, calling it similar to dancing.



4. Of course, Portman was already very familiar with dancing, since she studied ballet for more than a year to play in Black Swan. For the first six months, she gradually increased her strength, exercising for a couple of hours a day, then moved to five hours, and then to eight. She spent half an hour a day doing foot exercises alone. This caused her toenails to fall off and she even dislocated a rib while being lifted by a partner. Portman honestly admitted that during preparation she sometimes felt like she was literally going to die. She received an Oscar for this role.



5. While preparing to play the king of rock and roll in Elvis, Austin Butler practiced singing and dancing every day - of course. What's much more amazing is that he also studied karate, along with tap dancing, to understand how Elvis moved. Butler spent a full year and a half preparing to play the music icon, including listening to recordings of Presley's voice while he fell asleep and studying every possible video of the late performer. He read every Elvis book he could find and isolated himself from friends and family to immerse himself in the character. The day after filming wrapped, the actor had to go to the hospital due to "excruciating pain": Butler explained that his body felt like it was shutting down after all the stress and adrenaline during filming. His performance has already received such rave reviews that an Oscar is being predicted for the actor.



6. But Taika Waititi practically did not prepare for the role of Hitler for his film “Jojo Rabbit.” The actor and director explained that he did not study any materials and did not even base the character in the film on what he already knew about Hitler, since this was not required - he noted that he was not playing Hitler, but an imaginary version of him in the mind of a child. “I just made him a version of myself with a bad haircut and a shitty little mustache. And a mediocre German accent,” said Waititi, adding that playing the real Hitler would be too weird for him.



7. For her role in the film “I, Tonya,” Margot Robbie spent six months studying the life of the notorious figure skater. The actress said that she watched absolutely all possible materials about Tonya Harding: every film she rented, every interview, every documentary. According to Robbie, she played them on her iPod at night, and Harding's face was practically imprinted on the inside of her eyelids, her voice constantly playing in her head. She also practiced skating for five months, and most of the skates in the film, based on Harding's actual skates, were actually performed by Robbie herself. She also worked hard on her posture and carefully slouched to reflect how the world was literally crushing Harding.



8. To prepare for his role in The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio literally slept inside animal carcasses. He also camped in the wilderness, swam in frozen rivers, and ate raw bison meat. In the end, the preparation was worth it as he won his first Oscar for this role.



9. Michael Gambon, who replaced Richard Harris as Dumbledore in the third Harry Potter film, has not read a single book about the wizard. "There's no point in reading the books because you're playing with [writer] Steve Kloves' words," Gambon explained. Many criticized his version of Dumbledore as too harsh, especially after the famous scene in the fourth film when Dumbledore screams at Harry, trying to find out if he threw his name into the Goblet of Fire.



10. Unlike Gambon, Christopher Lee was perhaps the most accomplished actor in his fantasy franchise. Lee was a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and re-read the books every year even before he was cast to play Saruman. Moreover, Lee was the only actor to meet Tolkien in person. He always dreamed of playing in a film adaptation and even specifically agreed to the roles of wizards to prove that he would be an excellent candidate. In addition, he even sent photos of himself as a magician to Peter Jackson.



11. Christopher Plummer had virtually no time to prepare for his role as J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World, but that wasn't his fault. By early November, work on the film was almost completed, but then the creators decided to replace Kevin Spacey in this role because he was accused of sexual assault. Plummer shot all the footage in nine days, starting on November 20, just a couple of weeks after he landed the role. He knew very little about the Getty family and didn't really dive into the material. He basically just followed the script and the director's advice, which was not much as time was running out. The actor admitted that he had difficulty remembering his lines. He also didn't watch footage of Spacey in the role because he didn't want to copy his acting style, and he didn't see much of the other parts of the film. Despite the lack of preparation, critics praised Plummer's performance, and he became the oldest person in history to be nominated for an Oscar when he received a nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category.



12. Viggo Mortensen also did not have time to properly prepare for The Lord of the Rings, since he was cast in the role a few days after filming began. The actor admitted that he felt unprepared compared to other actors who spent weeks, even months preparing for the difficult task of filming the entire trilogy. The first thing after landing in New Zealand was that the actor was taught how to fight with swords, and he almost immediately starred in such a scene. The second scene, Mortensen said, was where he sits in the corner of a pub smoking a pipe, and he was very grateful that he didn't immediately have to do scenes where his character would have to speak.



13. To prepare for “Room,” in which she played a young mother in captivity, Brie Larson spent a month at home, confined to four walls. She met with psychologists to learn about the psychological trauma of people in such situations, kept a diary of her character and made collages from her point of view. In the weeks leading up to filming, Larson also spent a lot of time with her on-screen son Jacob Tremblay, making toys that later appeared in the film, improvising and building Legos before bed. Larson's work paid off in full - in 2016 she received an Oscar for Best Actress.



14. Ewan McGregor didn't read Jane Austen's Emma before starring in the film adaptation of the same name as Frank Churchill. He called this film the worst thing he has ever done in his career, honestly admitting that he was not very good at it. The actor also admitted that he only accepted the role because he thought he had to do something different from Trainspotting.



15. Perhaps one of the most notorious cases of over-preparing for a role is Jared Leto's behavior on the set of Suicide Squad. To get into the role of the Joker, Leto sent other actors strange gifts (for example, a live rat) and avoided communicating with them. He also brought a dead pig onto the set to "create momentum, create an element of surprise, spontaneity and really break down any walls" because, in his opinion, the Joker does not respect people's personal boundaries. According to actress Viola Davis, Leto sent his "minions" or lackeys to deliver gifts. He followed drug lords on Instagram* to gain inspiration for the role and met "people who have committed terrible crimes... people who have been in institutions for a long time." He also rehearsed the Joker's laugh while walking around Manhattan. It was also reported that after filming the prison scene, he asked to be locked there overnight, although this information has not been confirmed.



16. Another actor who starred in film adaptations of books he didn't read is Billy Burke, who played Bella's father, Charlie, in the Twilight films. Burke stated that he "lacked the attention" to finish the book, and that since much of the information in books would not be useful to him, he "preferred not to know" it. In fact, he had never even heard of the books until he met Catherine Hardwicke.



17. Daniel Day-Lewis is famous for his method acting and always prepares thoroughly for his roles, but perhaps one of the most extreme examples is his preparation for Gangs of New York. He literally walked around Rome in disguise and fought with strangers. In addition, he got a job as an apprentice to a real butcher. Apparently, this helped him, because in the end the actor was nominated for an Oscar for this work.



18. While Hugh Jackman certainly did a lot of work to prepare for the role of Wolverine in subsequent films, he didn't have the opportunity to do so for the first X-Men. This was because he was called in to replace Dougray Scott a few weeks into filming. He only had three weeks to prepare for the role. It turns out that he had never lifted weights before in his life. Jackman was not a comic book fan and had never read an X-Men comic or even heard of Wolverine. Moreover, he did not even know about the existence of such an animal. However, according to the actor, he has since read "almost all" of the comics.



19. But who really prepared well for her role was Lady Gaga in the House of Gucci. First, she stayed in character for 18 months, even away from the cameras, and spoke with an accent for nine of those months. Gaga also watched videos of foxes and panthers to incorporate them into her image, and began, in her words, to live in such a way that she would constantly “see money.” She also began taking pictures of everything that seemed beautiful to her, since Patricia loved beautiful things, and deleted all other photographs.



20. Writer Anne Rice was extremely unhappy that Tom Cruise got the role of Lestat in the film adaptation of her novel Interview with the Vampire. This criticism apparently hurt Cruise, because he decided to carefully read not only this novel, but all of Rice's books in general. He also learned to play the piano, lost weight and went to Paris to try Lestat's hedonistic lifestyle. After the film's release, Rice eventually admitted that Tom had done a wonderful job.



21. Rafe Spall, however, hadn't read The War of the Worlds before starring in the BBC version, although he admitted it would have been another way to help shape the character. Even after filming, Spall never read the book.



22. Aretha Franklin handpicked Jennifer Hudson several years before her death to play her in the biopic. Moreover, they met weekly for many years to talk about the singer's role and background. Hudson studied old Aretha performance videos and worked with voice and movement coaches to perfectly portray Aretha in Respect.



23. And finally, Sabrina Carpenter played a girl who learns to dance in the Netflix teen film Step by Step - without having to learn the choreography. It made sense, though: her character was just learning to dance, so not knowing the choreography made her look inexperienced.