1. The Entire Cast - One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Strange one this, with the exception of it's main star, Jack Nicholson, the cast of One Flew Over committed themselves to a psychiatric ward to get into character for the 1975 Oscar littered film. One of the strongest points to this film is the superfluous acting of the supporting cast that includes Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Brad Diouf. When you concentrate on the message of the film, it really hammers home the reason these actors divulged in such a method and why Nicholson avoided it. Nicholson is playing the guy who isn't at all mentally ill, a man who by his own admissions doesn't need mental help, and who is simply there to get out of work in jail. For that reason, he did not commit himself and thus isolated his connection to the others who were portraying mentally ill patients. You can see how much of an effect this had on the stars of the film by watching the making of documentary that comes along with the DVD/Blu Ray version of the film. They claim that there wasn't any acting on show here and that by committing themselves to be a mental asylum, it is nothing but real. We see a distant Sydney Lassick (who plays one of the most interesting fore fronting characters in Cheswick) looking out the window of the mental institute and contemplating his own life and what it means to be institutionalized. His distant look and far away speech simply shows how close he has come to the edge and echoes what the very film tries to portray: In the battle for freedom, does conforming to authority make one more insane, or is it the freedom of expression that sets you free?
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