Actors Talk About Playing Their Most Difficult Roles

People find true crime interesting, especially serial killer stories. Co-creator and co-producer Ryan Murphy made this.Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.This story is the newest part of the series.

Evan Peters had doubts about playing the main monster. He thought, “I really went back and forth on whether I should do it or not. I knew it was going to be incredibly dark and an incredible challenge.” Once he started, he fully committed. Peters spent four months trying to act like Dahmer. On set, he stayed in character.Peters had a very straight back. He did not move his arms while walking, so they put weights on his arms to test the feeling. He wore the character shoes with lifts and his jeans, his glasses. He held a cigarette constantly. Peters wanted these external things to feel natural during filming. He watched much footage. He also worked with a dialect coach to get his voice right.

His way of speaking showed a distinct dialect. So, he made a 45-minute audio recording. He listened to that daily, hoping to learn his speech patterns. He tried to enter his mindset and grasp what happened each day during filming.

He spoke in a distinct way; he had a dialect. I made a 45-minute audio mix. I listened daily, trying to learn his speech patterns and grasp his mindset during shooting.

Co-star Niecy Nash, who played Dahmer's neighbor Glenda Cleveland, worried aboutWhen you stay in a role and connect to the material like bone to marrow, your soul gets troubled at some point. I could see him getting tired.Peters did:

When you stay in it and are tied to the material, like bone to marrow, your soul gets troubled. He looked tired.

Shelley DuvallShelley Duvall has not appeared in Hollywood for over 20 years. Before her isolation, she worked for several years as a young Hollywood star. She played deeply emotional or ethereal characters. Wendy Torrance in The Shining is one of her famous roles.worked in Hollywood for over 20 years. Before isolating herself, she enjoyed several years as a young star. She played deeply emotional or ethereal characters; Wendy Torrance inShe recalled this in a Hollywood Reporter interview. She did much more while filming the classic horror movie.

When Stanley Kubrick offered Duvall the part, he said, “I was great at crying.”To wake up early on Monday and realize you had to cry all day because it was scheduled, she would just start crying. She would think, “Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.” But she did it. She does not know how she did it. Jack Nicholson told her that too. He said, “I don’t know how you do it.”The staircase scene, where Duvall's character hits Nicholson's with a bat, required 127 takes. She described it as:Hollywood ReporterWe filmed that for about three weeks. Every day. It was very hard. Jack was so good—so scary.

[Kubrick] does not print anything until at least the 35th take. Thirty-five takes, running, crying, and carrying a boy makes it hard. The first rehearsal showed a full performance. That is hard.

Waking up Monday morning early, realizing you had to cry all day because it was scheduled—I would just start crying. I’d think, “Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.” And I did it. I don't know how. Jack Nicholson told me that too. He said, “I don’t know how you do it.”

The staircase scene, where Duvall's character hits Nicholson's with a bat, took 127 takes. She describes it like this:

That scene was tough, but it became one of the best in the film.

We filmed that for three weeks. Every day. It was very hard. Jack was so good—so scary.

To play Trevor Reznik, a man with insomnia and hallucinations in 2004'sThe MachinistChristian Bale lost 63 pounds. This was one of eight major changes he made for movie roles. He explained the surreal experience.He explained the surreal experience of becoming Reznik.Christian Bale became Reznik.

Being so skinny you can barely climb stairs means you are pure thought. You abandon your body. This state feels Zen. Two hours sleep, ten hours reading straight. Unbelievable. You could not provoke me. No emotional roller coaster. Putting food back in your stomach brings the roller coaster back.

Stanley Tucci received his first Oscar nomination for playing serial killer George Harvey in the 2009 thriller.The Lovely Bones.Tucci told Entertainment Tonight.Tucci told Entertainment Tonight.He talked about the role he would never play again in 2023.

I would not play George Harvey again in.The Lovely Bones.The movie was horrible. It is a wonderful film, but the role made it a tough experience.

The Lovely Bones.Based on Alice Sebold's 2002 novel of the same name, this film focuses on a teen girl (played by Saoirse Ronan) who watches her family and murderer from the afterlife after she was raped and killed by Harvey, her neighbor.

Tucci went to director Peter Jackson to get out of the part.

I tried to get out of playing the role; that is crazy because I needed a job. I asked, “Why do you want me?” He answered, “Because you're funny.” I thought, “Okay.” But I get what he meant. He meant I should not be overly dramatic. I should throw it away a bit. That is what you do when playing someone awful, right?

Tucci managed to stay in the role. He said, “You can't play into it. Then it's over. You just have to play against it.”

He got an Oscar nomination in 2009 for best supporting actor for the role, but lost to Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds.Inglourious Basterds..

InThe Revenant.Leonardo DiCaprio portraysHugh Glass.DiCaprio plays a 19th-century fur trader who made a tough trek through the wilderness.DiCaprio explains:

Hugh Glass was a campfire legend, and it is true. He survived a savage bear attack, was left for dead, then traveled through uncharted interior America, crawling through hundreds of miles of wilderness alone.

DiCaprio's experience as the main character was not as dangerous as Glass's, but it was not easy either.

Every day of this movie was hard. It was the hardest film I have ever done.

The hardest part for me was getting into and out of frozen rivers. I had elk skin on and a bear fur weighing about 100 pounds when it got wet. Each day was a challenge to avoid hypothermia.

EMTs were there. They built this machine—like a giant hair dryer with octopus tentacles—to heat my feet and fingers after every take. They blasted me with an octopus hair dryer after every single take for nine months because I got locked up with the cold.

One day, we shot a scene, and it hit forty below zero. The camera gears failed. Twice during the film, we saw seven feet of snow melt in one day. All of it, in five hours. We faced two or three weeks without snow in a film entirely about snow. We shut down production several times.

Quentin Tarantino won the award for directing a second entry on this list withKill Bill.Uma Thurman she began preparing rigorously for her role as The Bride only three months after giving birth to her son.She prepared with three styles of kung fu, two styles of sword fighting, knife throwing, knife fighting, hand-to-hand combat, and Japanese speaking. It was absurd.

She learned to treat the fight scenes like dances.Thurman struggled:, Thurman struggled:

My body type opposes those who made this art. They have a low center of gravity; they are compact. I am different. I stand five feet eleven inches, all arms and legs, with a two-foot neck.

The biggest on-set incident did not involve martial arts. Tarantino forced Thurman to do a car stunt herself.Kill Bill: Volume 2, whichlanded her in the hospital:

The steering wheel was at my belly, and my legs were jammed underneath me. I felt searing pain and thought, “Oh my God, I’m never going to walk again.” Returning from the hospital in a neck brace with damaged knees and a large egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car. I became very upset. Quentin and I fought hard, and I accused him of trying to kill me.

Thurman and Tarantino had a fifteen-year falling out after the incident. The former accused the latter of putting her in grave danger by telling her to do the stunt herself. The director called that decision the biggest regret of his life. Thurman later forgave him after he showed footage of the crash and praised him for admitting his actions.

Thurmankept speaking outagainst the film's producers, accusing them of covering up the incident.

If you missed Noel Marshall's1981 filmRoar, it did not reach the US until 2015. You can only find it through the indie Alamo Drafthouse Cinema now. A documentary about the film is available to stream too.available to streamas well.

The movie, often called the most dangerous film ever made, follows Marshall's character Hank. Hank lives with and studies lions, tigers, panthers, and other animals. Tippi Hedren plays Marshall's wife Madeleine. Melanie Griffith (Hedren's real-life daughter) plays the couple's daughter Melanie. John and Jerry, Marshall's real-life sons, play the couple's sons.

Hedren, who married Marshall then, wrote about the...RoarShe wrote about the experience in her autobiography. She and Marshall bought land in California to house all the animals.She also filmed parts of the movie.

Our lions, tigers, elephant, leopards (actually black-coated leopards, not spotted ones), and panthers joined a few cougars.

They had 132 big cats, one elephant, three aoudad sheep, and a collection of ostriches, flamingos, marabou, storks, and black swans.

Nearly every cast member got an animal injury. Griffith needed surgery to save his sight after being mauled. Cinematographer Jan de Bont's scalp ripped off, requiring 120 stitches. Marshall caught blood poisoning. Hedren got gangrene needing skin grafts. Still, she said she was "into it every bit as much as he [Marshall] was."

Marshall's son John did something.John had a different take.John said, “Dad was a f**king a**hole to do that to his family.” The production took 11 years, leaving John with nightmares, but he still says the experience was “amazing” to live through.

Quentin Tarantino knows how to make a headline movie. Love him or hate him, that is one reason.one of the reasonsJamie Foxx signed on to Django Unchained.Django Unchained.As he said, "…When you see a Quentin Tarantino script, you want to be in it.

The actor admitted challenges existed for the role, though:

The hard part is doing a movie about slavery and those scenes. Watching Kerry Washington whipped, wearing chains, and losing yourself is tough. I pride myself on being strong. I take nothing from anyone. I am Django without the violence. I don’t think I am less than anyone… Stripping it all back and acting like I can’t read is tough. That hits your mind. That was the hard part, along with the physical stuff like riding horses, gunplay, and everything else.

Foxx wanted the film to start more talks about history, even if it meant learning the worst parts:

The question remains. How do people not know when we were freed? Why don’t you know about the slave trade? Even if it wasn't a movie, but more specials; really analyzing the mindset then gives us that history. I don’t know how that hurts us.

To play a Holocaust survivor convincingly, Adrien Brody lost 31 pounds. He gave away his car and apartment so he could better connect with the hardships of his character, Władysław Szpilman. Brody won an Oscar for the role, soThese sacrifices must have impacted his performance.He must have made an impact on his performance.

I did a starvation diet and dropped to 129 pounds for that role. Then, I had to regain it fast because we shot in reverse chronology. I learned to play long sections of Chopin's Nocturnes and Ballades.Nocturnes.and ballades.Ballades.I learned these for the scenes Roman wanted shot. I don't read music. So, I built this muscle memory through technical practice and adding what I learned along the way.

Actors now act on green screens. Things were different in 1988 when Bob Hoskins played Eddie Valiant inWho Framed Roger Rabbit?

He filmed with imaginary characters even.affected his daily life.:

I think I went crazy working on that. The rabbit's voice was always behind the camera. You had to know where the rabbit was constantly, along with Jessica Rabbit and the weasels. I learned to hallucinate. Doing that for eight months makes it hard to stop. I went to an event where I talked to a country lady with a big hat, and there was a weasel in her hat.

Over five seasons inBreaking Bad., Bryan Cranston as Walter White dealt with drug dealers and the darkest parts of humanity. The hardest part? The murder or the drug dealing? Not close.Cranston said the worst part.happened in Season Two when Krysten Ritter's Jane Margolis choked on her own vomit:

In acting, you expose yourself. In one take, while thinking about how it was someone's daughter lying there, I suddenly looked at my own daughter's face. Taylor appeared, and I gasped.

Show co-executive producer Vince Gilligan said the scene marked a turning point for the character:

On film, you see Walt's surprise, alarm, fear, realizing opportunity, sadness, self-loathing, acceptance, and a hardening resolve. All happen in seconds. But, what came off Bryan on camera had heat, something powerful and hard to catch—like he sent it across the infrared band.

Preparing to film the WWII movieFury., where he played tank gunner Boyd "Bible" Swan, Shia LaBeoufLaBeouf went to the extreme.:

The day after getting the job, I joined the US National Guard. I was baptized—accepted Christ in my heart—tattooed my surrender, and became a chaplain's assistant to Captain Yates for the 41st Infantry. I lived on a forward operating base for a month. Then I linked up with my cast and went to Fort Irwin. I pulled my tooth, nicked my face open, and spent days watching horses die. I did not bathe for four months. Tankers told me that was how things were out there; some guys wore the same socks for three years.

Logan Lerman played tank assistant driver/bow gunner Norman "Machine" Ellison., supports the stories.about his eccentric co-star:

He walks into the hallway. He says, “Hey man, wanna see something fun? Check this out…” Then he takes out a knife and cuts his face. He kept making these cuts on his face for the whole movie. That is the truth.

He did not perform the tooth extraction himself. He went to a dentist and asked them to pull his tooth, but that was an odd request.

He spent every moment on that set. He operates the turret in every shot, even when other actors are inside. He was there for every shot.

Tom Hanks described his role as Sheriff Woody.Toy Story.the franchise.Tom Hanks called it his most tiring role.This role might make you view animation differently:

I never went into a recording studio for Woody without wanting it to end. He is clenched. He is a clenched person. Everything he faces is his moment's crisis.

Standing there, unable to move—can't move off the microphone—and embodying this. I feel clenched just thinking about it now. I drove home after a four-, five-, sometimes six-hour recording session, and my diaphragm hurts.

You have no costume to hide in. You have no motion to animate the emotion; you cannot do that. You must stay still, on the mic, using only your imagination and voice to get there. I think I recorded half of all theToy Story.Tom Hanks starred in these movies with his eyes closed.

“A very high-functioning alcoholic.” That is howGary Oldman described a role.his character Herman J. Mankiewicz in the 2020 drama Mank. Oldman said he was vulnerable while playing a man full of contradictions:

There is no wig, no teeth, no fake noses. Just you. I like the odd disguise to hide behind. But more than that, you play a man with intense self-loathing.

This character comes to Hollywood with contempt for the quality of what is produced. An artist friend once said it is 99% trash, and the 1% is where excellence lives, and that is what he strives for. That became an Everest for Mank. The peak moved farther away, and he saw he would not write that great play or novel; he was in trouble with alcohol and gambling.

It was not all heavy drama, however, as Oldman added:

Orson Welles said he was one of the sweetest, funniest people he met. If you were on the other side of that bitterness and vitriol, God help you. But when he was with Mank and the focus was on others, he was the funniest person around.

That is just an interesting mix to play.

Tom Cruise is known for acting, producing, and doing his own stunts. He revealed that theTom Cruise spoke about Mission: Impossible.the franchise.was his toughest project to date because he had to do all three:

This film is the hardest. It demands producing, acting, and doing all the action work ourselves.

We have fun. We work hard.

Asked about playing his most difficult roles.he does his own stuntsCruise compares it to Gene Kelly doing his own dancing; it shows who he is and what he does. “No one asked Gene Kelly, ‘Why do you dance? Why do you do your own dancing?’”