10 Seriously Insane Ways Famous Movie Actors Got Into Character

9. Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

2728323-movies_the_joker_heath_ledger_batman_the_dark_knight_1450x967_wallpaper_www It really is hard to believe, but when Christopher Nolan announced he had cast Heath Ledger in the Joker role for The Dark Knight, fan boys were up in arms. Known prior to it for playing pretty boy roles (a Knights Tale, 10 Things I hate About You) and the tortured souls (Brokeback Mountain, Monsters Ball), offering him the role of the Clown Prince couldn't have been more off the mark. Or at least, so the world initially thought. Heath Ledger locked himself in a hotel room, isolated himself from the outside world (including his own family) took prescription drugs by the bucket load and descended into a complete personal hell in order to really encapsulate the anarchy that comes with playing The Joker. Ledger told reporters he "slept an average of two hours a night" while playing "a psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy. I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." €œPrescription drugs didn't help.€ he also added. After tragically dying from a combination of said prescription drugs and exhaustion, the former Joker, Jack Nicholson, infamously stated he knew the reason for his Ledger€™s demise. "Well, I warned him." - Cryptic and ill timed it may have been, but unfortunately for the world, it is a statement that wasn't too far from the truth about the dangers of actors losing themselves in the dark world of method acting.
 
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Shaun does not enjoy writing about himself in the third person. The rest? I will tell you in another life, when we are both cats...