10 Actors Who Put Insane Effort Into Details Nobody Noticed

Sigourney Weaver portrayed the naturalist Dian Fossey in 1998's Gorillas in the Mist, and if you've seen the movie, you know how much work she put into portraying her character, but it's probable you don't know how devoted she was to perfecting her role.

The movie features real mountain gorillas, which meant that Weaver had to do some of the same kind of work the actual Dian Fossey did--she had to earn the gorilla's acceptance. This was done in much the same way it was depicted in the film, but for the most part, Weaver was protected and didn't have to engage with real gorillas too closely.

That being said, she did do a number of close-up scenes with real gorillas, and in order to make that work, she had to learn to communicate with them. Gorillas respect their own, and even though we don't look like them, an ability to mimic their sounds and movements goes a long way towards earning their acceptance.

To make this happen, Weaver learned the proper guttural sounds and rolling belching noises needed to "talk" to the gorillas. This means she effectively learned to communicate with them, and that could have been faked or emulated via movie magic, but Weaver went all the way in her portrayal, and the audience couldn't tell the level of work she put in for the role.