10 Movies Scenes That Genuinely Terrified Actors

Michael Cimino may have one of the most mixed careers in the history of Hollywood. The director was responsible for both some of the greatest films of the seventies and some of the worst, with his credits ranging from the underrated Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to the infamously costly disaster Heaven’s Gate.

Among his work, The Deer Hunter, a thoughtful and unsparing meditation on the legacy of America’s attack on Vietnam, stands out as a clear-cut classic. But the director was well-known for relying on some below-the-belt techniques to ensure he received the career-best performances that the film’s ensemble is famous for.

In one pivotal scene Cimino talked star Christopher Walken into actually spitting in co-star Robert DeNiro’s face, resulting in a shocked and enraged grimace which is entirely genuine. Similarly, the slapping featured through the unbearably tense climactic game of Russian roulette is un-staged, with each blow actually landing and adding to the mounting discomfort which pervades every frame of the sequence.