10 Actors Who Only Gave Great Performances Because They Got Drunk

10. Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Smashed

To play an alcoholic schoolteacher in James Ponsoldt's Smashed, Mary Elizabeth Winstead took a couple of interesting steps. To get her into the mind-set of a drunk on-set, Winstead would spin around in circles until she was dizzy, but to give her a sense of the real thing one night during the shoot, Winstead just plain decided to get drunk. Along with co-star Aaron Paul (playing Winstead's character's husband), Winstead went on a binge drinking session one evening and recorded the whole thing. She then watched it back later with Paul, to see how they interacted as a couple whilst absolutely trolleyed. The result is one of the great drunk performances of our time, and an oddly unheralded piece of acting work from an astonishingly talented actress.
Contributor
Contributor

Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1