10 Actors Who Spent FOREVER Preparing For Tiny Movie Roles

Scott Glenn appears fleetingly in Apocalypse Now as Captain Richard M. Colby, and despite his screen time amounting to almost nothing, he ended up spending seven months in the Philippines during the shoot.

Basically, Glenn was initially hired as a glorified extra expected to remain on location for just two weeks, but following an incident in which a quick-thinking Glenn saved director Francis Ford Coppola from a potentially fatal boating accident, Coppola thanked him by offering him a beefier role.

Glenn was then given the part of Captain Colby, who is glimpsed as a member of Colonel Kurtz's (Marlon Brando) private army near the end of the film, though still only appears on-screen for literal seconds.

This casting change resulted in Glenn's stay on set being extended by many months. Glenn further elongated this by becoming friendly with the area's indigenous Ifugao tribesmen, with whom he stayed for additional months before Coppola returned to shoot the movie's ending.

Basically, Glenn entrenched himself in the region far more than would've ever been necessary, even for the most fastidious of method actors. That it resulted in just seconds of screen time, then, is fascinating.