Actors Who Never Recovered From Their Most Distressing Roles

Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a classic of the genre. Wes Craven introduced a villain that would go on to become one of the most iconic antagonists in cinema history, but he struggled to get the project off the ground. Craven told Filmmaker magazine that many studios were "afraid of making a film that had blood in it." Fortunately, New Line Cinema took a chance on the venture, and Heather Langenkamp was cast as Nancy Thompson—but Langenkamp wasn't prepared for what awaited her on the other side of stardom.

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The More You Know

  • Only three films have won “The Big Five” Oscars
  • Fantasia (1940) was originally a short called The Sorcerers Apprentice, but Walt Disney overspent on the score and decided to make it feature length film rather than waste money.
  • Despite pulling in over $240m My Big Fat Greek Wedding never once topped the US box office chart.
  • The location of Tony Stark’s mansion in Iron Man is the same cliff from Planet of the Apes where the Statue of Liberty is sticking out from the sand.
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