25 actors who earned psychological trauma by playing difficult roles (26 photos)

Some may think that acting in films is pure entertainment. However, in reality everything is much more complicated, and especially difficult roles leave a serious imprint on the performers, which does not pass without a trace. Here's what famous actors say about their most challenging roles and how those roles affected them.





1. Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones



Earlier this year, Sophie Turner said in an interview that while filming Game of Thrones, she had to develop coping mechanisms to distract herself between takes and avoid severe psychological trauma.

“I am sure that in the future I will show some symptoms of injury. I don't think I could understand many of those scenes at that age." Turner was 15 years old when she was cast in the series. She ended up having to film some of the show's most traumatic scenes, including her character's rape.

2. Tom Hanks, Cast Away





In Cast Away, Tom Hanks played a man stranded on a desert island. To cope with loneliness, he began talking to a volleyball, which he named “Wilson.”

In a recent interview, Hanks admitted that he "went crazy" by the end of filming. “When Wilson was born, I had a dialogue with him, and I heard his answers in my head. I was really crazy because I had no days off, no scenes without me; the whole movie was, like, point and shoot. I don't even remember hearing "Motor!" and “Stop!”

3. Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread



Daniel Day-Lewis shocked the world when he announced his retirement from acting in 2017. W Magazine reported that his latest film, Phantom Thread, left the actor "so depressed that he had to publicly announce his retirement from acting."

“Paul [the film's director] and I laughed a lot before making the film. And then we stopped laughing because we were both overcome with sadness,” Day-Lewis told the magazine. “It took us by surprise: we didn’t understand what we had given birth to.” This was difficult to live with. And it’s still difficult.”

4. Leonardo DiCaprio, “Shutter Island”



DiCaprio called filming Shutter Island "traumatic" and "one of the most intense, hardcore shoots of my career as we explored what the mentally ill had to face in the days when mental hospitals were called insane asylums." ... I went within myself and discovered some things I didn't think I was capable of. It was like a cake with more and more emotional layers."

DiCaprio continued, “It reminded me of a time when I actually remembered my dreams because I don’t usually remember them. But when I tried to quit smoking and used the nicotine patch, I actually had chilling nightmares about massacres and woke up in the middle of the night and had to take the patches off. I think something similar happened to me in the film.”

5. Lady Gaga, “House of Gucci”



To fully immerse herself in the role, Lady Gaga stayed in character for nine months. She also channeled her own trauma into the role, to the point where her own experiences began to merge with her character's. “I fell apart when [Patricia] fell apart. When I say that I didn’t leave the character, I mean that it didn’t happen of my own free will.”

Director Ridley Scott was concerned that she would "hurt herself," but Gaga responded, "I've already done that. I've already been through this anyway. She said she was accompanied by a psychiatric nurse at the end of filming as it was "safer" for her. She also stated that she "brought darkness home with her because [Patricia's] life was dark."

6. Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana



Although Hannah Montana was a family show, starring in it gave Miley Cyrus what she called an "identity crisis." “I was my character almost as often as I was myself. And really, the concept of the show was that when you're this character, when you have this alter ego, you have value. You have millions of fans, you are the biggest star in the world. And the concept was that when I looked like myself, when I no longer had a wig on, no one was interested in me anymore, I was no longer a star. So that was drilled into my head,” Cyrus explained.

7. Zac Efron, “Beautiful, the Bad and the Ugly”



When Zac Efron played serial killer Ted Bundy in The Beautiful, the Bad and the Ugly, he had a hard time breaking out of the role when he returned home from filming. “It was almost impossible. I wish I could say I succeeded, but I can’t,” he told the Daily Mail.

8. Lily Collins, "Beautiful, Bad and Ugly"



Lily Collins, who played Bundy's girlfriend Elizabeth, also had difficulties with the role, but mostly during pre-production rather than during filming. “I actually felt really bad during the preparation,” she said. — I woke up every night at 3 or 4 am for a month. I woke up and saw destroyed rooms, logs and broken glass.”

9. Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker”



For the role of Arthur Fleck, Joaquin Phoenix had to lose almost 24 kilograms in order to appear emaciated. The actor shared that due to his obsession with weight, he noticed that he had the mentality associated with eating disorders.

“Once you reach your target weight, everything changes. For example, it is very difficult to wake up every day and worry about some 130 grams. Right? And you actually develop, like, a disorder.” He also said that such weight loss “affects the psyche. You're starting to go crazy."

10. Michael B. Jordan, Black Panther



When Michael B. Jordan was cast as the villain Killmonger in Black Panther, he isolated himself and "did everything [he] thought [he] had to do" to prepare for the role, but didn't anticipate what would happen next get out of this state.

The actor said that after filming it “caught up with him” and he found it difficult to return to normal life and to himself. “Re-adjusting to the people who care about me, getting that love that I was refusing,” he said. “I closed myself off from love, I didn’t want love.” I wanted to be in this aloneness for as long as I could.” He decided to go to therapy, which he said helped a lot. “Everyone needs to open up and speak out.”

11. Kate Winslet, "The Reader"



Kate Winslet won an Oscar for her role as a former Nazi camp worker in The Reader. “I'm still trying to come to terms with playing Hannah. Really, sincerely,” Winslet told HuffPost about the role.

“We finished filming on July 12th, and I walked away like a car accident victim who had somehow been left unharmed on the outside, but I felt like I couldn't talk. It was unbearable. I really moved somewhere. I was in some kind of trance. And I'm still trying to come to terms with all of this. This film shook me to the core."

12. Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”



Natalie Portman said filming Black Swan left her physically and emotionally drained. “It was the first time I realized how you can get so carried away by a role that it can kind of break you.”

She also talked about losing weight and preparing for the role: "There were days I thought I was literally going to die." She later admitted that she "probably should have gone to rehab" after filming because when she started filming Thor she was "exhausted."

13. Alex Wolf, “Reincarnation”



Alex Wolff told Vice that he's haunted by his role in Reincarnation. “When I started talking about it, all these flashes of this anxiety shit I had been going through came flooding back. It kept me awake to the point that I became accustomed to emotional masochism, to the point where I simply tried to absorb every negative emotion that I could pull something out of. I imposed them on myself, and not vice versa, as we usually do in life; that is, you sit on the heater until it starts to burn you, and immediately jump up. I had to do the exact opposite: endure the pain and let it burn me further. It's a reverse emotional thing. It's hard to describe it in words, it's just such a feeling. I don’t think you can go through something like that and not get PTSD.”

14. Ned Beatty, "Deliverance"



The rape scene of Ned Beatty's character Bobby, in which his rapist says the phrase "Squeal like a pig," haunted Beatty for many years, not least because people constantly shouted this phrase at him. The scene seemed to be traumatic for everyone involved: Beatty's co-star Burt Reynolds said it was actually him who called for filming to be stopped when the scene went too far, not director John Boorman.

Chris Dickey, son of the film's screenwriter James Dickey, later said that "Ned [Beatty] was trying to get out of character, to relax. But it didn't work. While he was in North Georgia, he seemed to change—as if the sadness or uncertainty he had previously harbored as a man, like Ned Beatty, simply could no longer be contained.” However, Beatty wrote that he was “proud” to have participated in this story - he even wrote an article about the experience and the reaction of men to rape victims.

15. Janet Leigh, Psycho



The actress was forever scarred by the famous scene from Psycho in which her character, Marion, is killed in the shower. Lee gave up showering altogether and took a bath every time instead. And if this was not possible, she took special measures: “I make sure that the doors and windows of the house are locked. I also leave the bathroom door open and leave the shower curtain open,” Lee said.

16. Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables



Anne Hathaway, who played Fantine in Les Misérables, a role for which she won an Oscar, called the filming (and her drastic weight loss for the role) a “break from reality.”

“I was in such a state of deprivation - physical and emotional. When I returned home, I couldn't respond to the chaos of the world without feeling overwhelmed. It took me a few weeks to feel like myself again,” she continued.

17. Bill Skarsgard, “It”



Bill Skarsgård compared playing the villain Pennywise in It to being in a destructive relationship. He was happy to let the character go after filming, but also said that he had "weird, vivid dreams about Pennywise" every night at home after that.

18. Christina Applegate, "Goodbye Forever"



Christina Applegate, who played Jen in Goodbye, said the show's focus on grief and murder led her to seek therapy, especially because it reminded her of loss in her own life.

“It brought up some things that I had to deal with. It was cathartic. I don't know if it had a therapeutic effect. Did I start psychotherapy after the series? Yes, absolutely,” Applegate said.

19. Dakota Johnson, Suspiria



Describing the harsh conditions of filming in an abandoned mountaintop hotel, Dakota Johnson said that playing Susie in Suspiria "gets me so bad that I had to go to a therapist."

She later said: “Sometimes I notice when I'm working on a project and—I'm not ashamed of it—I'm a very porous person and I absorb a lot of people's feelings. Sometimes when you're working with a dark theme, it can linger with you, and then discussing it with someone really nice is a really good way to leave the project behind.”

20. Mandy Patinkin, Criminal Minds



Mandy Patinkin left the role of Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds because he didn't like the content of the series. He said: “I thought it would be something completely different. I never thought that they would kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was extremely destructive to my soul and my personality.”

21. Bob Hoskins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?



Bob Hoskins starred as Eddie in the animated feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Filming with cartoon characters had dangerous consequences, as the actor "trained" himself to hallucinate in order to react to imaginary creatures.

“Eventually I lost my mind,” he said. “I was sitting, talking normally, and suddenly a ferret jumped out of the wall at me.” As a result, doctors advised him to stop acting for a couple of months, and he did not act for another year.

22. Kyle Richards, "Halloween"



Kyle Richards was just 8 years old when she played Lindsay in Halloween. Richards was not negatively affected by the filming of the film, but rather by seeing herself in it: “I had no idea what was in store for me. When I first saw it all together, it was a completely different movie. It was just very scary, and after that I actually slept with my mother until I was 15 years old. I was terrified,” she said.

“I think that’s what made me give up doing horror films. After I saw myself in that movie, I kept thinking there was someone hiding behind the curtains, behind my windows, or under my bed, so I just slept all night holding my mom's hand,” Richards said.

23. Adrien Brody, "The Pianist"



In the film The Pianist, Adrien Brody played pianist Vladislav Szpilman, a Holocaust survivor. The actor spent several months preparing: playing the piano four hours a day, selling all his possessions, starving himself and reading Szpilman's memoirs in order to immerse himself in the Holocaust. Brody said it took him more than six months after the film to return to his normal lifestyle. “Sometimes I was worried that I wouldn’t come out of it sane because I didn’t realize how far it had taken me,” the actor said.

24. Jake Gyllenhaal, “Stringer”



Jake Gyllenhaal had to lose 14 kilograms to play Louis in Stringer. He also said that the character still appears in his nightmares, although he later stated that he does not believe in nightmares, and dreams are simply ways of communicating with himself.

25. Jim Carrey, "Man on the Moon"



Jim Carrey threw himself into his role as eccentric comedian Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon, to the point where he had trouble recovering from filming.

"I looked at myself and thought, 'What the hell do I believe in?'" the actor said. However, he said it also helped him let go of the expectations of who he was supposed to be in a sort of "death."