10 Directors Who Broke Their Stars To Make Famous Movies

2. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now Shoot Drove Martin Sheen To A Heart Attack

What appeared to be an overly-ambitious, career-wrecking folly on-set (Francis Ford Coppola, the film's director, considered killing himself at one stage during production, so convinced was he of the film's failure) actually resulted in one of the greatest war movies of all time. Which isn't to forget that the shoot for Apocalypse Now was chaotic and almost fatal for some of those involved, including the film's star, Martin Sheen. See a sweating, naked Sheen drinking himself stupid, crying and bleeding all over the place in the scene where he punches a mirror? That's not acting - Coppola simply placed a camera in front of his lead (the film's second, after Harvey Keitel was fired after three weeks) and started filming. It was no fault of Coppola's that Sheen came to the set already in a mess and battling with alcoholism, but the dangerous, lengthy Apocalypse Now shoot certainly didn't help the actor, who eventually had a heart attack some months into production. It was a hell of a filming process - Coppola would go on to say, accurately: "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane".