10 Times Prosthetics Nearly Broke An Actor
3. John Hurt - The Elephant Man
Sir John Hurt dealt with his fair share of special effects during his stellar 50+ year acting career. Who can forget witnessing a Xenomorph burst out of his chest in Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi classic Alien?
However, the prosthetics needed to turn him into John Merrick in David Lynch's The Elephant Man very nearly sent him over the edge.
It reportedly took 12 hours for the makeup team to apply the original prosthetics to Hurt and the legendary actor admitted that he told his wife, 'I think they finally managed to make me hate acting,' due to the stresses of physically transforming into this particular character.
Thankfully, the makeup time was shorted down to around eight hours a day (with an additional two for removal) and Hurt was given every other day off to try and keep himself mentally fresh for the next spell of shooting.
His hard graft was rewarded with a Best Actor Academy Award nomination and the stellar work of the effects team forced the Academy to introduce a new category in the form of Best Makeup - which was later altered to Best Makeup and Hairstyling.