12 Stars That Bravely Dealt With All the Hardships of Their Roles, and It Was Worth It

The acting profession is not only about talent and ability to play other people convincingly. True professionals endure months of workouts and hours of makeup for their roles. And sometimes, actors even have to deal with emotional and physical traumas.

Colin Farrell — The Batman (2022)

Handsome Colin Farrell had to transform into Penguin, whose face is covered with numerous cuts and scars. Of course, such a huge transformation couldn’t have happened without well-planned makeup. The actor said that the first makeup session took around 6-8 hours and during all this time, he was surrounded by a team of 12 people, working on his hair, teeth, and creating his new body.

When the filming started, Colin had to spend 3-4 hours in the makeup room. Fortunately, he enjoyed the entire process. “I have not had this much unbridled fun with something.”

Joey King — Bullet Train (2022)

All the events of Bullet Train happen on a super-fast train. Of course, it wasn’t filmed on a real train. To create the illusion of an always-moving train, filmmakers used special screens. This is why Joey King was having a very hard time, because she had motion sickness.

“I never got motion sickness, but what did happen is, you know that feeling when you’re sitting in a parked car and the people next to you starts backing up, and you feel like you’re going forward, you’re like gasps. Sometimes I got that feeling”, the actress said.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson — Bullet Train (2022)

The filming process was difficult for some of the other actors as well, not just Joey King. Aaron Taylor-Johnson even ended up in the hospital because he got an injury during a fight scene. The actor was thrown across the entire room and he injured his hand on a sharp corner. Aaron says, “I literally went wham, passed out.” His colleagues sent him to the hospital right away, he got stitches, and spent the entire night there.

Dane DiLiegro — Prey (2022)

Dane DiLiegro is a former professional basketball player that decided to change his career dramatically and now plays monsters in movies. In order to become the legendary Predator, DiLiegro lost 25 lbs. “They wanted a lean, dynamic, more animal Predator. Traditionally I’m bigger, more muscular. I had to get away from that.”

He also practiced parkour for 2 months. He said that not many guys of his height can actually do it. He spent another 2 months training his neck, because the Predator’s head weighed around 13 lbs.

On set, he had to wear a latex costume that weighed around 80 lbs. Dane DiLiegro said that the job was far from easy. “When you’re in Calgary in the middle of the summer and it’s over 95 degrees, you’re sweating. It’s sitting there in the suit, and it gets heavier and wetter as the days go on. Every time I swung my arm, you’d see sweat squirt out the sides and out of my knees.”

He didn’t only suffer from the heat. He could see very little while wearing the costume. DiLiegro had to move basically by touch. He said, “For this Predator to look forward, I had to look down at the ground, and there were two holes in the neck that I could look through. I couldn’t see more than three feet in front of me.”

David Harbour — Stranger Things (2016 — ...)

The star of Stranger Things lost 80 lbs for season 4. To look like a real exhausted prisoner, Harbour practiced intermittent fasting, and he worked out every day. He’d sometimes have days without food and wouldn’t eat anything for 24 hours. It’s amazing how strong of a person David is.

Jamie Campbell Bower — Stranger Things (2016 — ...)

When the main villain of Stranger Things season 4 appeared on the screens, lots of people believed it was CGI. But it turned out that Jamie Campbell Bower had to wear a big construction of complex prostheses.

Campbell Bower started his working day at 3 am. Every day, it would take the makeup team 7 hours to turn Jamie into the scary monster. The actor would spend 10-12 hours on the set and then would wait for another hour for the artists to remove the costume carefully.

Imelda Staunton — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

The actress, who portrayed the violent Dolores Umbridge, admitted that after one of the scenes, she felt bad for several days. According to Staunton, it was really emotionally difficult for her when Umbridge made Harry Potter write the phrase “I must not tell lies.” with a special feather.

Imelda Staunton shared her feelings, “That touched into something that you think, ‘Gosh, we’re all capable of great cruelty.’ It was a horrible, horrible feeling.”

Natalie Portman — Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Natalie Portman worked incredibly hard to portray a goddess in the new Thor movie. The actress spent 10 months building her muscles under the supervision of her personal coach. Together, they would work out 2 hours 5 days a week. Portman did the job great and was really proud of herself, “I turned 40 while making the movie, and it was an incredible point in my life to say, ‘You’re going to be the fittest, strongest version of yourself.”

Jared Leto — House of Gucci (2021)

Jared Leto had to put in titanic efforts to turn into Paolo Gucci. He shared, “It took about six hours every morning and about an hour to take it off at night. It was worth every single second.” On top of that, Leto had to learn to walk, sing, and dance in a totally new way to fully dive into his character.

Owain Arthur — Rings of Power (2022 — ...)

Owain Arthur had to spend 2.5 hours every day to turn into Durin IV. According to him, the bushy beard was the biggest problem. It consisted of 16 parts and weighed as much as a newborn baby. To avoid fainting because of the heat, Arthur had to wear a special cooling vest.

It’s hard to imagine how hard it is to show any emotions on the set when you have so many pounds of hair attached to your face, but the star of Rings of Power did a great job.

Karen Gillan — Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

The actress that portrayed Nebula waited 4 hours and 15 minutes every day for the makeup artists to make a puzzle of 5 separate pieces on her face. And at the end of every day, the team needed 30 minutes to remove the mask.

But the dark contact lenses were the biggest trouble. They covered the eyes completely. She said, “I had to wear such huge contacts in the first ’Guardians’ that I cannot wear contacts anymore.”

Brendan Fraser — The Whale (2022)

The triumphant return of Brendan Fraser on the screens looked truly amazing. The actor portrayed a teacher, who weighs 600 lbs, confined to a wheelchair. Fraser had to wear a special costume that weighed 300 lbs. At the beginning of filming, the makeup took 6 hours.

The actor said that he developed muscles he had no idea existed, but by the end of the working day, he felt exhausted. “I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed; it was like stepping off the dock onto a boat in Venice. That [sense of] undulating.”

Brendan Fraser’s work was definitely worth it. During the premier, the audience was clapping him for 6 minutes and even made the actor cry. We hope Fraser will get a bunch of well-deserved awards.

If you were an actor, would you agree to undertake such challenges for a role?