10 Outrageous Ways Movie Directors Got Performances Out Of Actors

10. Robert Eggers Refused To Tell Robert Pattinson His Entire Backstory - The Lighthouse

It goes without saying that providing an actor with as much information as possible when it comes to their character's background usually gives a performer a better chance of delivering the goods.

Yet, Robert Eggers had other ideas during the forging of his deeply surreal horror survival thriller The Lighthouse. Instead of mapping out precisely what Robert Pattinson's personality of Ephraim Winslow/Thomas Howard had been through in the lead-up to the events of the film, the director decided to leave things as open as possible in order to offer space for the audience to land on their own conclusions regarding R-Patz' character history.

Hell, even when Pattinson himself attempted to nudge his director on what Ephraim had been up to beforehand - in-between p*ssing himself and getting p*ssed, of, course - Eggers would admit to responding (via Vox), "Look, any of those things work. You need to decide for yourself or you can’t play the scene."

And that degree of ambiguity undoubtedly trickled into the finished article itself when all was said and done, with many still debating over what in the holy hell the antics involving Pattinson and Willem Dafoe's nutty wickies all meant some three years later...