10 Movie Roles That Seriously Screwed Up Actors

Lest we accuse Kubrick of unfairly singling out his female stars, it’s worth noting the hell he put his marines through for his seminal (anti-)war film, Full Metal Jacket. Arriving after Platoon and Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket offered a colder and more uncompromising vision of the war America lost to Vietnam, eschewing the latter’s psychedelia and the former’s melodrama for a brutal, bleak story.

This tone was reflected in the filmmaking process, where actor Vincent D’Onofrio was expected to shave his head and gain a staggering seventy pounds in order to play struggling cadet Private Lawrence. The actor noted that women lost interest in him and he was patronised in conversation, while the rapid weight gain took a sizeable toll on his physical health.

Lawrence’s onscreen nemesis, his drill sergeant played by R Lee Erney, fared no better. He was told to practise lines while Kubrick’s assistant pelted him with tennis balls, each of which he was expected to catch and return instantly without missing a word. Once each scene had been run through twenty times with no mistakes, pauses, or fumbles, Kubrick was willing to film.