10 Actors Who Were Haunted By Their Movie Roles

Working in and around a medium as disturbing and traumatic as horror is inevitably going to leave a sizeable impact on any actor tasked with inhabiting said medium.

As such, this sort of thing was especially prevalent back in the 1960s, '70s and even '80s as actors starring in horror movies often endured looking their monster in the eye, as opposed to staring at a tennis ball on the end of a stick like most actors face today.

With that in mind, Janet Leigh’s life forever changed off the back of shooting Psycho, and mainly from just one particular scene. Undoubtedly one of cinema’s most iconic and infamous moments, Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane is stabbed to death by Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates in the shower. There’s no doubt about the long-lasting impact Marion’s on-screen murder has had on film since, however, the same should be said for Leigh’s life off-screen.

Her character's grisly and slippery demise left the Janet with serious side effects that stuck. As such, Leigh’s day-to-day life changed, as she stated in conversation with The New York Times that “I stopped taking showers and I only take baths… When I'm someplace where I can only take a shower, I make sure the doors and windows of the house are locked.”

It may sound a fear farcical to many, but Janet Leigh’s psychological trigger of showers is a constant reminder of the reality of acting and how it can prove difficult to blur the lines between fact and fiction.