10 Actors Who Spent FOREVER Preparing For Tiny Movie Roles

10. Johnny Depp - Platoon

Johnny Depp appears periodically throughout Oliver Stone's classic war film Platoon as soldier Gator Lerner - a background character who doesn't get much to do, yet for a 22-year-old Depp, it marked one of his first major screen credits.

And in addition to being put through a month-long military boot camp alongside his more famous co-stars, Depp spent months prior to shooting learning Vietnamese.

With his character being an interpreter who speaks Vietnamese throughout the movie, Depp wanted to ensure he nailed the part and not merely do the most superficial bare minimum to convince.

It's also worth noting that Depp originally had a larger role in Platoon which would've made greater use of his studying, yet several of Depp's most prominent scenes ended up being cut by Stone, ensuring that he put all that time into learning the language for mere scraps of screen time.