10 Even More Movie Mistakes Directors Refused To Fix Because The Acting Was Too Good

2. Martin Sheen Goes Mental - Apocalypse Now

The Hateful Eight
United Artists

Take all the trauma felt by the kids on Willy Wonka, mush it all together, and then multiple it by a hundred. You still don't have half the suffering the Martin Sheen put himself through to make Francis Ford Coppola's wartime opus Apocalypse Now.

Charlie's dad famously had a heart attack during filming that damn near killed him and was struggling with serious alcohol problems throughout the production.

These demons were caught on camera during the scene where his character Captain Benjamin Willard has a full-on breakdown in a hotel room. To make the sequence more realistic, Sheen actually got blackout drunk before filming and insisted on shooting it whilst intoxicated.

As you can imagine, this went very wrong.

Four sheets to the wind, Sheen staggered round the room whilst reliving the horrors of war in his mind. In his drunken state, he punches a mirror, which turned out to be 100% real.

What is it with actors and mirrors?

As you'd expect, Sheen badly cut open his hand but refused medical treatment. He incorporated the injury into the scene, making for a mesmerising if incredibly disturbing viewing experience.

Contributor
Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.