10 Infamous Times Actors Refused To Break Character

As the undisputed king of plunging elbow-deep into his characters, Daniel Day-Lewis is so method that the lengths he’ll go to in the process of becoming one with his role are legendary.

To prepare for his role in The Last of the Mohicans he lived in the wild for six months, built himself a canoe and learned how to trap and skin animals while for The Crucible he built his character’s 17th century-style house using only the kind of old-timey tools that would’ve been available back then.

Some of the most extreme tactics Day-Lewis has used to stay in character came with 1989’s biographical drama My Left Foot in which he played the Irish painter and writer Christy Brown who was born with cerebral palsy, wheelchair-bound and only had control over his left foot.

During the shoot, Day-Lewis confined himself to his character’s wheelchair almost entirely and even when the cameras weren’t rolling the actor insisted crew members carry him around if he wasn’t in his chair and even had them spoon-feed him too. As a result of being hunched over for weeks on end, Day-Lewis ending up breaking two of his ribs.

There was method to his madness, though. His dedication to staying in character on the set of My Left Foot scored him the first of his three Best Actor Oscars. Whether the unfortunate cast members tasked with lugging the six foot two-inch-tall actor around the set were rewarded for their efforts remains to be seen.