Actors Who Never Recovered From Their Most Distressing Roles

Adrian Brody in The Pianist

Adrian Brody went through both a tremendous physical and emotional transformation to play Wladyslaw Szpilman, a real-life pianist and Holocaust survivor. The role earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor, but it came at a price.

Brody went on a crash diet in order to depict Szpilman, who would have been starving at the time. For six weeks, Brody consumed two boiled eggs for breakfast, a small amount of chicken for lunch, and chicken or fish with steamed vegetables for dinner. Brody was 6'5", but at his lightest, he weighed only 130 pounds.

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The More You Know

  • Toto was paid $125 per week while filming The Wizard of Oz.
  • Viggo Mortensen had no intention of working on The Lord of the Rings until his son begged him to do it.
  • Pierce Brosnan was contractually forbidden from wearing a full tuxedo in any non-James Bond movie from 1995-2002.
  • The bridge blown up by Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was prematurely detonated by a Spanish Army Captain. Upon learning of his mistake the Captain ordered his troops to rebuild the bridge, only for it to suffer another explosion once complete.
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