10 Actors Who Made Insane Sacrifices For Movies (And Why)

2. Jackie Chan Did His Own Stunts...To Ensure He Wasn't Just Another Bruce Lee Clone - Most Of His Earlier Movies

The Sacrifice

Though in recent years Jackie Chan has massively toned down the death-defying stunt work and left the tough stuff to younger men, in his prime from the 1970s through to the 1990s, he was absolutely untouchable as the most brazen and daring stunt performer in the world.

But his global fame wasn't without its price, as Chan racked up literally countless injuries over the course of his career, breaking many, many bones throughout his body, being burned, permanently damaging his spine and suffering a head injury so severe on Armour of God II he had to have freaking brain surgery.

To say Chan has suffered for his fame and our entertainment is a massive understatement, but in the early days of his career at least, there was far more to it than simply flexing his ego and showing the world his spacehopper-sized balls.

Why They Did It

When looking back on his career, Chan claimed that the entire motivation behind doing his own stunts was to differentiate himself from the countless other young martial artists who had been pigeonholed as mere imitations of Bruce Lee.

By venturing off in a more comedic direction with his martial arts shenanigans and focusing on risking his own life and limb above all else, he became an attraction that the world simply couldn't lump in with all the Bruce Lee knock-offs.

And when superstardom came, Chan presumably couldn't let a good thing go, and just kept flirting with death until he came to Hollywood and producers begged him to let the stuntmen earn their pay instead.