10 Insane Skills Actors Learned For Movie Roles

3. Ruth Wilson Learned How To Castrate Lambs (Dark River)

The Walk
Arrow Films

While preparing to play a farmer in the bleak 2017 drama Dark River, lead actress Ruth Wilson did the obvious thing: she went to work on a farm in order to gain some experience in that field. But as you might expect, this wasn't a walk in the park.

Spending around a month working on a farm in Yorkshire, Wilson - who, at first, was a complete noob at this sort of thing - was taught a bunch of different skills that made her feel more like her character.

These included shearing sheep, clipping hooves, and - in her own words - "castrating lambs". Yes, really.

Wilson found working with the animals to be incredibly difficult, but since her character is meant to be an expert in this area, she felt that it was important to get a taste of what it's like to work on a real farm.

Her work ethic is admirable, but perhaps she went a bit too "method" with that whole castrating thing.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.