10 Insane Ways Actors Prepared For Famous Movie Scenes

6. Dustin Hoffman Ran A Half-Mile For Any Scene Where His Character Was Out Of Breath - Marathon Man

Classic 1976 suspense thriller Marathon Man revolves around a grad student and running enthusiast (Dustin Hoffman) who gets caught up in an international conspiracy involving diamonds and an especially sinister Nazi war criminal (Laurence Olivier).

Per its title, the film naturally features numerous sequences of Hoffman's protagonist "Babe" Levy running around New York City, and in order to get into shape and prove convincing as a runner, he ran up to four miles per day both before and during shooting.

But Hoffman, a famously committed method actor, took this one step further, and for any scene which depicted Babe running, he would run for a half-mile immediately before shooting started.

This was in an attempt to make Babe's breathlessness seem more convincing, and upon learning of this, co-star Olivier hilariously asked him, "My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?"