10 Overly Committed Actors Who Took Their Parts Way Too Seriously

3. Dustin Hoffman - Marathon Man

Following on from his breakthrough role in The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman rapidly established himself as one of the greatest actors of the time, with strong performances in movies such as Midnight Cowboy, Papillon and Lenny all garnering critical praise. Another student of Lee Strasberg, Hoffman inhabited his roles with a depth and resonance few others could match. In Marathon Man, Hoffman stars as Thomas "Babe" Levy, a history student and avid runner who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a plot to capture a Nazi war criminal which goes horribly wrong. Based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman - who also wrote the screenplay - Marathon Man is one of the great thrillers of the 1970s, in which paranoia and fear culminate in the infamous torture scene in which Laurence Olivier's twisted Nazi performs unconventional dental procedures on Levy, repeatedly asking him "Is it safe?" Hoffman's all-round dedication to acting is perhaps most famously illustrated in the fact that he stayed up for three days straight for a scene in which his character had done the same - clearly pushing his body to the limits for his craft, it prompted a conversation with Laurence Olivier which has since gone down in legend. After explaining his sleep deprivation to Olivier, the famous thespian replied, "Why don't you just try acting?" According to Hoffman, however, the intention wasn't meant to be as an insult as many have assumed since - he later elaborated on the exchange in an interview saying, "He laughed, because he said, you know, 'I'm one to talk.'"