25 actors who went to crazy lengths to get into character (26 photos)

The method is a Stanislavski-based approach to acting used by some of Hollywood's biggest stars. This extreme approach often results in actors winning prestigious awards and cult status, but sometimes they go too far, such as starving themselves or completely isolating themselves from society. So, here is a list of actors who are willing to do anything to fully immerse themselves in a role.





1. Val Kilmer



In 1991, Val Kilmer played Jim Morrison in the biopic The Doors. To prepare for the role, the actor not only learned to play 50 songs from the “Lizard King,” but also lived in his image for a whole year: he dressed like Morrison and repeated his movements and mannerisms. Kilmer became so immersed in the character that, by his own admission, he later had to work with a psychologist to get out of it. Other members of The Doors later said that they could hardly tell the difference between Kilmer's performances in the film and Morrison's.

2. Tom Hanks





Tom Hanks was absolutely stunning as death row guard Paul Edgecombe in the 1999 film The Green Mile. But to do this, he had to constantly be in character, even outside the set. He even scared the king of horror himself, Stephen King, who wrote the book on which the film was based.

3. Rooney Mara



Actress Rooney Mara pulled out all the stops to bring punk hacker Lisbeth Salander to life in 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Mara cut and dyed her hair, bleached her eyebrows and got several facial piercings. She adopted Salander's style and habits so much that she did not abandon them after filming. “I used to dress more girly,” Mara says. — A lot of things are pink. Now I literally roll out of bed and wear whatever comes to hand. I really enjoyed being a tomboy last year.” Mara also studied martial arts, skateboarding and riding a motorcycle - all for this role.

4. Shia LaBeouf



To fully embrace the role of bootlegger Jack Bondurant in The Drunkest County in the World, LaBeouf drank moonshine constantly during filming. And that's just the beginning: when the actor was filming A Dangerous Illusion, he decided to take LSD to understand how his character would feel on drugs. And when he played a World War II soldier in Fury, LaBeouf refused to shower and even pulled out his own tooth. His co-star Brad Pitt even had to complain about the unpleasant smell.

5. Natalie Portman



To authentically play the ballerina Nina in Black Swan, Natalie Portman took drastic measures. She trained 16 hours a day and lost 10 kilograms. The training was so intense that she suffered several injuries, including a dislocated rib that left her temporarily unable to film. Portman spent so much time training that she eventually became close and later married the film's choreographer, Benjamin Millepied.

6. Robert Pattinson



Pattinson definitely moved away from his old love interest role when he starred in 2019's The Lighthouse. It was with this film that he proved that he was willing to do anything to bring more realism to the role. However, some of his methods confused even Willem Dafoe. For example, when Pattinson needed to make his character cry, he deliberately caused himself to gag.

7. Michael B. Jordan



Actor Michael B. Jordan became so immersed in his role as villain Erik Killmonger in Black Panther that he had to see a psychologist after filming wrapped. “I spent a lot of time alone,” Jordan admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. “I thought Eric was quite lonely as a child.” He had practically no one to talk to about this non-existent place called Wakanda." Jordan recalled that he had to "give up love" to find himself in the same loneliness that his character lived in.

8. Lady Gaga



Having played the role of Reggiani Gucci in the film "House of Gucci", Gaga proved that she is ready to compete with the best of the best in acting. In an interview with Vogue, the star said that she lived as Reggiani for a year and a half before filming and spoke with an Italian accent for nine months of that time.

9. Johnny Depp



In 1998, Depp received the role of Raoul Duke in the now cult film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel of the same name. To fully immerse himself in the role, Depp decided to move into Thompson's basement to try to get inside the author's mind. While living there, he read old notes all day long and spent all his time with the author.

10. Kate Winslet



In her new film Ammonite, Winslet plays Mary Anning, a mid-19th century paleontologist. The actress said that in order to get into character, she wanted to fully experience the introverted nature of her character. To do this, she lived alone for some time in a cold and damp coastal cottage, where she whiled away the time by sketching and “eating strange soup.”

11. Jared Leto



When Jared Leto took on the role of the Joker in 2016's Suicide Squad, he knew he would have to work hard to emulate the successes of Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson. To get into character, the actor completely isolated himself from his colleagues and even sent them strange “gifts”: for example, he sent used condoms to Will Smith and Margot Robbie. And this was not the first such experience in Leto’s acting career. In 2000, while preparing for his role in Requiem for a Dream, Leto lost 13 kilograms and lived on the streets of New York. “I was constantly hungry, just like my character,” the actor told the BBC.

12. Jamie Foxx



When Foxx played blind musician Ray Charles in the biopic Ray, he had to walk around with his eyes completely taped shut for 14 hours a day. The actor also lost about 15 kilograms to authentically portray Charles, who had long struggled with heroin addiction. And that's not all: to look even more like a musician, Fox asked the dentist to chop off a piece of his tooth.

13. Hilary Swank



To authentically play a transgender character in Boys Don't Cry, Hilary Swank lived as a man for several months before filming. She cut her hair, tightened her breasts and stuffed rolled up socks into her fly. She looked so convincing that the neighbors all this time thought that her relative had come to stay with the actress.

14. Jamie Dornan



In the 2013 crime series The Fall, Jamie Dornan played a serial killer named Paul Spector. Taking on such a role is no easy task, and before filming began, he decided to try to get into the mind of his character by following a stranger on a train. “I once followed a woman off a train to see what it was like to follow someone like that,” Dornan told The Times. - “I’m not proud of it. But I honestly think I learned something from the experience because, obviously, I've never done anything like this before. It was quite curious and interesting to dive into this process of “why are you following her?” and “what are you trying to find out?”

15. Halle Berry



Early in her career, Halle Berry played a teenage drug addict in Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever. Berry herself had never used drugs, but she wanted to understand her character's struggle as much as possible. To do this, the star visited a brothel and met people who knew about this struggle firsthand. But the actress didn’t stop there: she also didn’t wash for two weeks. When asked if this was true, Berry replied, “Ask Sam Jackson! He definitely felt it."

16. Heath Ledger



Many believe that it was the role of the Joker in The Dark Knight that led to Heath Ledger's untimely death, as the actor did everything possible to immerse himself as deeply as possible in the image of the legendary villain. He was locked up for weeks, completely isolated from people, and kept a diary that consisted of manic entries and creepy drawings of clowns and hyenas. While filming an interrogation scene with Christian Bale, who played Batman, Ledger asked Bale to actually beat him up, and according to Bale, Ledger purposely slammed into the walls so hard that they left dents.

17. Gary Oldman



Gary Oldman knows how to completely immerse himself in a role, and his Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour was no exception. Oldman went to great lengths to portray the former British Prime Minister authentically, and it's not just about the impressive makeup. In preparation for the role, Oldman smoked $30,000 worth of cigars, which ultimately led to the actor having stomach problems. And to prepare for emotional scenes, Oldman uses a "bag of pain" containing photographs of his father, his first wife and son.

18.Forest Whitaker



Playing a man like Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is no easy task, but Forest Whitaker does not disappoint. For his role in the film “The Last King of Scotland,” the actor learned Swahili, learned to play the accordion, and also lived in Uganda for three and a half months. There he interacted with Amin's immediate family, as well as victims and high-ranking officials of his regime.

19. Dustin Hoffman



In the 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman played the lead role alongside his Hollywood colleague Meryl Streep. The actors played a couple going through a difficult divorce. Hoffman was completely committed to the role, so much so that he began to abuse Streep on set, treating her exactly the same way his character treated her character in the film. Once he even slapped the actress right before the start of the scene. This isn't the only time Hoffman went to extreme measures to immerse himself in a role. For his role in the 1976 film Marathon Man, Hoffman, like his character, stayed awake for 72 hours straight.

20. Daniel Day-Lewis



When Lewis played a cerebral palsy sufferer in the 1989 film My Left Foot, he refused to use a wheelchair to better fit into the role. This applied to both the film set and trips on business or to a restaurant. Kristen Sheridan, an actress and daughter of the film's director, described Lewis' behavior on set as follows: "He would call you by your character's name, and you had to call him Christy. It was crazy. He had to be spoon-fed and transported in a wheelchair. During the entire film, I only saw him on his feet once.”

21. Charlize Theron



For the role of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in “Monster,” the actress gained about 15 kilograms and completely transformed herself. She also wore false teeth to better fit into the character. The role earned Theron an Oscar, but the actress insists that her way of immersing herself in a role is not a method. According to Theron, she used this technique in "The Devil's Advocate" and it completely exhausted her.

22. Ashton Kutcher



In 2015, Ashton Kutcher, whose role as a comedian was assigned, approached the role of Steve Jobs in the film of the same name with all responsibility. Kutcher's co-stars said that he refused to break out of character throughout filming. The actor even forbade his wife, Mila Kunis, from visiting him on set because he feared it would force him out of character. Several crew members said that Kutcher was extremely unfriendly and, like Jobs, often shouted at them.

23. Anne Hathaway



Who can forget Anne Hathaway's heartbreaking performance in the 2012 film adaptation of the musical Les Misérables? For the role of Fantine, the actress received a number of prestigious awards, but it was not easy for her. For example, Hathaway admitted that before filming began, she lost 12 kilograms in just two weeks, eating exclusively oatmeal. She also cut off almost all her hair for the role.

24. Adrien Brody



In the 2002 film “The Pianist,” actor Adrien Brody had to bring to the screen the real story of composer Vladislav Szpilman, a Holocaust survivor. Before filming, the already thin actor lost almost 15 kilograms and learned to play the piano so that the film would not have to use special effects. Brody also moved out of his apartment and showed up on set with a single bag of belongings. He also sold his car and turned off his phone.

25. Mickey Rourke



The actor went to great lengths to authentically play supervillain Ivan Vanko in the Iron Man sequel. For example, during a visit to Moscow, he visited Butyrka prison and talked with prisoners to better understand Vanko as a character. And this isn't the first time Rourke has thrown himself into a role: During the filming of 2008's The Wrestler, the actor said he would do all his own stunts. This decision deserves respect - although, as you can guess, it led to injuries on the court.