10 Weird Ways That Actors Coped With Difficult Shoots
8. Tom Cruise Grins and Bears It Through a Stomach Ulcer
Tom Cruise has done a great many crazy things in his career - climbing to the top of the 829m high Burj Khalifa in Dubai, hanging off an airplane, doing a 25,000 ft Halo jump and recently hanging upside down from a biplane for Mission: Impossible 8. However, his time working with Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut was mentally, rather than physically challenging.
The film holds the Guinness World Record for the longest constant film shoot, clocking in at 15 months, including an unbroken shoot which lasted 46 weeks. During the filming, director Stanley Kubrick would ask Cruise and his then-wife Nicole Kidman to share their personal reservations about their marriage, and shot 95 different takes of Cruise walking through a door.
Cruise, a notorious over-achiever was committed to giving the legendary director exactly what he wanted, though Kubrick would often withhold exactly what that was. Eventually, the stresses of the production gave Cruise a stomach ulcer. The actor decided not to inform his director of this ailment, fearing that it would disrupt and delay the protracted shoot even further. If you can handle Stanley Kubrick, hanging off an airplane must be a breeze.