Some actors prepare diligently for a role, and some don't (36 photos)

What lengths do actors go to for a good role? They gain weight and lose weight by tens of kilos, spend whole days in the gym and even learn new professions. True, their other colleagues believe that there is no need to strain so much, and before filming they barely bother to get acquainted with the script. And not to say that in the second case the results are worse!







To prepare for his role in The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio actually slept inside animal corpses.





But the hard preparation was worth it - DiCaprio received his first Oscar for this role.



But Michael Gambon, who replaced Richard Harris as Dumbledore in the third Harry Potter film, had not read any of the Potter books at all before appearing in the series.



"There's no point in reading books because you're working with the words of a screenwriter," Gambon said. Many criticized his Dumbledore as being too rude, especially after the scene in the fourth film where Dumbledore asks Harry if he put his name in the goblet of fire: in the book, Dumbledore says "calmly", but in the film he literally screams.



Gambon mentioned the fact that Ralph Fiennes hadn't read the books either. However, Fiennes actually read them before filming - he just hadn't read them yet when he was offered the role.



In contrast, Christopher Lee was probably one of the most trained actors in the trilogy. He was a lifelong fan of The Lord of the Rings and re-read it every year before playing Saruman in the films.



Lee was the only actor in the series who actually met Tolkien. He always wanted to act in films and even took on minor roles as wizards to prove that he was suitable for the role. In addition, he sent Peter Jackson photos of himself in a wizard costume.



This is not to say that this is entirely the actor's fault, but the fact remains that Christopher Plummer did little to prepare for the role of John Paul Getty in the film All the Money in the World. The film was nearly completed in early November when it was announced that Plummer would replace Kevin Spacey in the role. The change came after Spacey was accused of sexual assault.



Plummer filmed all of his scenes in nine days, just weeks after he was cast. He knew very little about the Getty family and did not do much research on it. "I really followed the script and Ridley's suggestions, which were few and far between because time was short," Plummer said in an interview. He admitted that he had difficulty remembering his lines. He also didn't watch Spacey's footage, though he said it was only because he didn't want to copy Spacey's performance.



Despite his lack of preparation, Plummer's performance was critically acclaimed and he eventually became the oldest person ever nominated for an Oscar.



To prepare for her role as a captive young mother in The Room, Brie Larson spent a month holed up in her house. She met with psychologists to learn about the trauma of captivity, wrote diary entries for her character, and made collages of the characters.



Larson spent time with her on-screen son Jacob Tremblay in the weeks leading up to filming. They created toys that appeared on screen, improvised roles and played with Lego.



Her hard work paid off - she won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2016.



Ewan McGregor had not read Jane Austen's Emma before starring in the film version as Frank Churchill.



He called the film the worst thing he's done in his career and admitted that he wasn't very good at it. The actor frankly explained that he took on the role only because he really wanted to do something different from Trainspotting.



Jared Leto was seen preparing thoroughly (and rather unpleasantly for those around him) for the role in Suicide Squad. To prepare for the role of the Joker, Leto sent strange gifts (for example, a live rat) to his colleagues on the set 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 the Joker, in his opinion, did not respect other people's boundaries.



Leto tried to communicate with drug lords on Instagram to find inspiration for the role, and, according to his own accounts, met "people who have committed terrible crimes... people who have been institutionalized for years." He even practiced his Joker laugh in Manhattan. And when they were filming a scene in prison, he insisted on spending the night there in a locked cell.



Another actor who never read the books that were used in the films he played in is Billy Burke, who played Bella's father, Charlie, in the Twilight saga.



According to Burke, he “didn’t pay enough attention” to read the book. He stated that since much of the information in the books would not be useful to him, he would "prefer not to know" it. Moreover, he had never even heard of Twilight until he met Catherine Hardwicke.



Daniel Day-Lewis is known for his professional acting and careful preparation for his roles, but perhaps one of the most notable examples was his preparation for Gangs of New York. He even walked the streets in disguise and fought with strangers.



In addition, he became a real apprentice butcher. Well, it worked because he ended up being nominated for an Oscar for his work.



While Hugh Jackman certainly did a lot of prep work to play Wolverine in subsequent films, he wasn't able to do the same for X-Men, the first mutant film. The fact is that he was cast as a replacement for Dougray Scott within a few weeks of filming. He had only three weeks to get in shape for the role - despite the fact that he had never previously worked out professionally in the gym.



Jackman was not a comic book fan, had never read an X-Men comic, or even heard of Wolverine. In truth, he didn't even know that wolverine was a real animal. However, he later admitted that he read a lot of X-Men comics.



Another recent example of an actor who did a great job of preparing for her role is Lady Gaga in House of Gucci. She stayed in character for 18 months, even when the camera wasn't rolling, and wore an accent for nine of those months.



Lady Gaga watched videos of foxes and panthers, trying to use them for the role, and began to “live so that she sees money everywhere and in everything.” “Patricia loved beautiful things,” she says. “So if something wasn’t pretty, I threw it away.”



But Taika Waititi practically did not prepare for the role of Hitler in the film “Jojo Rabbit.” “I didn’t have to do any research and I didn’t do any research. I didn't base it on anything I'd seen before about Hitler," Waititi said, pointing out that he's not actually portraying Hitler, but a child's imaginary version of him.



“I just made him a version of myself with a bad haircut and a little shitty mustache. And with a mediocre German accent,” said Waititi, noting that it would be “too weird to play the real Hitler.”



Writer Anne Rice was very unhappy with the choice of Tom Cruise to play Lestat in the film adaptation of her novel Interview with the Vampire. This criticism apparently hurt Cruise, and he decided to not only read the book carefully, but also read all of Rice's books, learn to play the piano, lose weight, and go to Paris to try out Lestat's hedonistic lifestyle. “Tom did an incredible job,” the writer later admitted with approval after seeing him on screen.



Rafe Spall had not read The War of the Worlds before appearing in the BBC television series, although he admitted that it was "another way that could help" in portraying the character. Even after filming, Spall still had not read the book.



Jennifer Hudson was chosen to play Aretha Franklin in the biopic several years before her death. They met weekly for years to talk about Aretha's background and role.



Hudson studied old videos and historical footage of Aretha's performance. She also worked with vocal and movement coaches to capture Aretha perfectly.



Sabrina Carpenter played a teenager who learns to dance in the Netflix teen film Step by Step, but, unlike the heroine, she did not take up choreography.



However, in reality it was not just like that. Her character was supposed to struggle to learn how to dance, so not knowing choreographic techniques helped her look awkward on screen.



Natalie Portman trained for over a year to portray the ballerina in Black Swan. For the first six months, she built muscle for a couple of hours a day, then moved on to training for five hours a day, and later - eight hours. She spent 30 minutes a day just doing leg exercises.



The exercise caused her toenails to peel off and she even dislocated a rib while stretching. “There were nights when I thought I would die from pain,” Portman later said. However, her suffering paid off - she received an Oscar for this role.