6. Robert De Niro Ate Himself Into Respiratory Problems For Raging Bull
Let's lay the cards on the table for a moment: Robert De Niro got so fat for Raging Bull that he was struggling to breathe. But it wasn't all he did to win his second Best Actor Oscar for Martin Scorsese's classic biopic: to play the younger version of middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta, De Niro hired the real LaMotta as his trainer and entered himself into real fights, winning two out of three, with LaMotta later saying De Niro became one of the 20 best middleweight boxers of all time under his tutelage. However, the weight De Niro gained for Raging Bull's later scenes remains the most cited example of the actor's dedication in the film world, and he truly went to mammoth efforts to convincingly play the part of a grossly obese washout. Production was put on hold for four months and De Niro ballooned from 145 to 215 pounds, eating his way around Italy and France - when he returned, the actor was severely ill, with his posture, breathing and even speech affected by the fact he'd added the weight of half a regular-sized person to his overall mass.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
