8 Times Movie Directors Were Total Jerks To Their Actors

Stanley Kubrick was one of the greatest directors who ever lived, with an almost unparalleled library of work including undisputed classics like Full Metal Jacket, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange. He was also known as a real perfectionist with a very controlling personality, willing to do whatever it took to get the shot he wanted.

While filming The Shining, Kubrick was famously cruel to actress Shelley Duvall, who played Wendy Torrance in the movie. Kubrick allegedly verbally abused Duvall, as well as making her reshoot individual scenes over and over again in order to build her stress levels and make her performance more authentic. Reports even state that Duvall was made to redo the memorable baseball bat scene over 120 times in total, and her hair started falling out due to the pressure.

Kubrick would argue that his methods might have appeared somewhat brutal, but they got the results he wanted, with Duvall's traumatised performance often cited as one of the more memorable features of the cult classic film.