10 Actors Who Only Gave Great Performances Because They Got Drunk

2. Richard E Grant - Withnail & I

It's still the role Richard E Grant is known best for for a reason: that desperate, raging alcoholism has never been made to look more devastatingly hilarious. In Bruce Robinson's cult comedy classic, Grant plays aspiring actor Withnail, who regularly drinks himself into a stupor just to get himself through another day in bleak '60s England. As this was Grant's first opportunity to star in a film, he was willing to do what he could to take the part, including going on a diet and drinking copious amounts of alcohol until he was violently sick just so he could experience the sensation of drunkenness. See, Grant was (and presumably still is) a teetotaler, down to the fact that a health condition means he can't properly process alcohol. To prepare for Withnail & I, Grant got drunk for the first time, after Robinson declared Grant wouldn't be able to play the character if he'd never been drunk or suffered a hangover before. The result was intense vomiting, and inspiration for a drunk performance for the ages.