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

  • The beer used while filming of the Hobbit was custom made by New Zealand brewers. It was a 1% dark stout called "Sobering Thought".
  • The Lion King was originally known as King of the Jungle until someone at Disney finally remembered that lions don’t actually live in jungles.
  • There’s a 20 year age gap between Sam Neill and Laura Dern in Jurassic Park, with Laura aged only 26 during filming.
  • Walt Disney hated Goofy.
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