The Dark Knight isn't so fearless after all.
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00:00 Sometimes, the production of a movie will require actors to do
00:03 something they might not be comfortable with, whether that's
00:06 learning an incredibly difficult skill or even facing a deep-seated
00:10 fear. Our big screen heroes might seem all cool and infallible,
00:14 but they're still mere mortals, just like the rest of us.
00:17 So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with
00:21 10 Movies That Forced Actors to Face Their Fears.
00:24 Number 10. Ryan Reynolds' Fear of Flying in Green Lantern
00:29 There are many reasons why Ryan Reynolds probably regrets doing
00:33 Green Lantern. The film was trounced by critics and has become
00:36 such a laughingstock in the years since that Deadpool 2 even saw
00:41 Reynolds joke about killing himself before he could sign on for
00:44 the project. Green Lantern wasn't a total waste of time, though.
00:47 Not only did Reynolds meet his future wife, Blake, lively while
00:51 shooting the film, but the experience of starring in a superhero
00:55 epic also allowed the sharp-tongued Canadian to overcome one of
00:58 his biggest fears; flying. As Reynolds explained on the Today
01:03 Show while promoting the film, "I'm a little afraid to fly.
01:06 I've always had problems with aeroplanes. In the film, I'm up
01:09 on high wires all the time. We were flying all over the place,
01:13 sometimes at 60 feet per second. It was really interesting and
01:17 really terrifying at first." Having a fear of flying and yet
01:20 signing up for a film where your character is a pilot who later
01:23 gains the power of flight? That's a boss move right there.
01:27 9. Salma Hayek's fear of snakes in From Dusk Till Dawn
01:32 Though you'd expect the filmmakers and actors to be on the same
01:35 page before agreeing to shoot a movie together, that isn't always
01:39 the case. Just ask Salma Hayek, who agreed to star in Quentin
01:43 Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's horror thriller From Dusk Till
01:46 Dawn, only to be thrown one hell of a curveball when the time came
01:50 to shoot her famous dance scene. That curveball? An enormous
01:54 snake. "I have a phobia," Hayek recalled in a chat with E! News.
01:58 "It was not in the script. I agreed to the movie, and then
02:01 Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino decided that the dance
02:04 is with the snake on me." Understandably, she then refused to
02:08 do the scene, but when Rodriguez and Tarantino indicated they'd
02:11 be willing to replace her, Hayek opted to conquer her fear rather
02:15 than walk away. "Frankly, I really needed to pay the rent," she
02:18 added.
02:19 8. Daniel Craig's fear of heights in Casino Royale
02:23 It's easy to forget these days, but back in the mid-2000s, there
02:27 was a lot of backlash over the casting of Daniel Craig as the
02:31 next James Bond. As casting director Debbie McWilliams recalled
02:35 in a recent chat with Entertainment Weekly, "It was unbelievably
02:39 negative, I have to say. The press response was awful, and I felt
02:43 so sorry for him." In the end, Craig proved the doubters wrong
02:46 when the brilliant Casino Royale released in November 2006.
02:51 But it wasn't just the press that the blue-eyed Brit had to
02:53 overcome in the early days of his 007 journey. It was his own
02:57 personal fears. More specifically, Craig's fear of heights reared
03:02 its head when he was told that he would have to climb a 200-foot
03:05 tall crane for the movie's opening parkour sequence.
03:08 "It was borderline fun and fear," said the actor, "but there was
03:12 no time for my fear of heights. You just have to do it."
03:15 And though Craig obviously didn't do every stunt in this scene,
03:18 he clearly did enough to make himself rather terrified.
03:21 7. Chris Evans' Fear of Taking on a Life-Changing Role in Captain
03:27 America The First Avenger
03:29 Chris Evans may be a kick-ass superhero on the big screen, but
03:33 he has just as much anxiety and stress in his life as anyone
03:36 else. In fact, it was these mental struggles that nearly caused
03:40 him to pass on the role of a lifetime, with the actor initially
03:43 refusing to don the stars and stripes of Captain America,
03:47 because in his own words, "it was the thing that I was most
03:50 scared of." While promoting Captain America The First Avenger
03:53 back in 2011, Evans described how he was initially quite
03:57 fearful of taking on the part, mainly because he was hesitant
04:01 to sign his soul away to a six-picture deal, but also because
04:05 he didn't want all the fame and attention that would come
04:07 with being a gigantic movie star. He said, "I chose to do this
04:11 movie because it was the thing that I think I was the most
04:13 scared of. I was scared because initially it was nine pictures,
04:17 then it came down to six movies. Even six movies, that's ten
04:21 years, dude. My freedom is gone if I do this movie." It clearly
04:25 worked out for the best, though, and in recent years Evans
04:27 has talked about how pushing through that fear and taking
04:30 the role was one of the best decisions he ever made.
04:33 Number 6. Jennifer Aniston's Fear of Going Underwater in Cake
04:38 Due to her career-defining role in 90s sitcom Friends, we don't
04:42 tend to think of Jennifer Aniston as a dramatic actress.
04:46 However, in 2014, she was racking up award nominations all
04:50 over the place for her work in indie flick Cake, where she
04:54 plays a woman suffering from chronic pain after surviving
04:57 a car accident that killed her son. It was a tough role to
05:00 take on in general, but Aniston found one particular aspect
05:03 of the shoot far more challenging than the rest. In a chat
05:07 with E! News, she described how a select few scenes in which
05:10 her character undergoes water therapy were incredibly difficult
05:13 for her to do, all because of a childhood incident that led
05:17 to her developing a fear of being submerged. She said, "I was
05:20 a kid and I was riding this tricycle around a swimming pool,
05:23 and I drove my tricycle into the swimming pool and I didn't
05:26 let go, and my brother tried to help me. So I can't go
05:30 underwater and no one will believe me. I honestly can't."
05:32 Aniston's fear was so tricky to overcome that it reportedly
05:36 took around 30 takes to get a single pool shot done right.
05:39 In the end, though, she received a ton of critical acclaim
05:42 for her performance, so her bravery paid off.
05:45 5. Ethan Hawke's Fear of Scary Movies in Sinister
05:50 Ethan Hawke and director Scott Derrickson are currently
05:53 in theatres with their critically acclaimed horror flick
05:56 The Black Phone, but this isn't the first time they've
05:59 collaborated to create a spooktacular time at the movies.
06:03 In 2012, their first horror film together, Sinister, was
06:07 also well-received by critics, with praise going to its
06:10 strong performances, shocking finale, and creepy atmosphere.
06:13 "It's an effective movie, no doubt, and it was the thought
06:16 of being involved with something so scary that nearly made
06:20 Hawke pass on the role entirely. For years I never wanted
06:23 to make one of these movies," he said while promoting
06:25 the film. "It's because I thought it would be absolutely
06:28 terrifying to make it."
06:29 Producer Jason Blum had actually been trying to get Hawke
06:33 to do a horror movie since Paranormal Activity in 2007,
06:37 but the actor always refused, simply because he thought
06:40 the experience would be too traumatic. In the end, though,
06:43 Hawke discovered that making horror movies was surprisingly
06:46 fun. He went on to make The Purge in 2013, and with The
06:50 Black Phone's success, there will undoubtedly be more
06:52 big-screen scares in his future.
06:54 4. Robert Pattinson's Fear of Horses in Water for Elephants
06:59 Robert Pattinson was last seen as the embodiment of bad
07:03 guys' fear in Matt Reeves' The Batman, but that doesn't
07:06 mean the actor is a fearless badass in reality. In fact,
07:10 our current Dark Knight has a fear that some might think
07:12 is a tad unusual. He's scared of horses. Pattinson was
07:16 forced to confront this fear while making his 2011 romantic
07:20 drama Water for Elephants, in which he stars as a promising
07:23 veterinary student who ends up getting a job at the circus.
07:26 This required him to interact with animals like elephants
07:29 and horses, and though the filmmakers didn't force him
07:32 to put his jockeying skills to the test, he did have an
07:35 encounter with a horse that left him rather shaken. He
07:38 said, "I had to get knocked down by a horse. That was
07:41 terrifying. It was just one split second, but it was a
07:44 fully grown stallion. I'm kind of relatively scared of
07:47 horses as well." Pattinson also revealed that one of his
07:50 elephant co-stars picked him up using its mouth, so it
07:53 doesn't really seem like the guy had the best of luck
07:55 around animals.
07:56 3. Emma Watson's Fear of Singing in Beauty and the Beast
08:00 We all have those moments where we think that we're pretty
08:04 good at singing. In the shower, most of us can belt out a
08:07 tune like nobody's watching, which hopefully they aren't.
08:09 And who doesn't feel like a pop star after a bit of
08:12 drunken karaoke? Emma Watson is under no such illusions,
08:16 however, with the actress not being confident that she
08:18 had the vocal chops to star as Belle in Disney's live
08:21 action remake of Beauty and the Beast. She described
08:24 the prospect of singing on such a grand stage as terrifying
08:27 because it was something she'd never attempted before.
08:30 There's no doubt that starring as an iconic Disney
08:33 character in a $200 million blockbuster was a daunting
08:36 hill to climb, but the experience of making Beauty and the
08:39 Beast actually helped Watson combat her fear. She said,
08:42 "I was afraid to sing in front of three people, and by
08:45 the end I was singing live in front of 300." She also
08:49 received praise for her performance, and the film grossed
08:51 over a billion dollars to boot. So, not really a bad
08:54 result.
08:55 2. Ryan Reynolds' Claustrophobia in Buried
08:59 A year before he battled his fear of flying in Green
09:02 Lantern, Ryan Reynolds was conquering another, much
09:05 more potent personal demon during the production of
09:08 his 2010 thriller Buried, Claustrophobia. In the movie,
09:12 Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a truck driver working in
09:16 Iraq who wakes up to discover that he's been buried
09:18 alive. As you'd expect, much of the film was shot with
09:21 Reynolds lying in an actual coffin, and this led to
09:24 the actor suffering from anxiety, insomnia, and complete
09:28 and utter panic for the duration of filming. "I'd go home
09:31 and I'd pace until sun up, like a vampire, and then
09:33 climb into a coffin to film," he said. "I was losing
09:36 my mind. I hadn't slept in days, weeks." Reynolds also
09:39 suffered from frequent panic attacks due to being
09:42 enclosed in such a tight space for hours on end. Even
09:45 worse, director Rodrigo Cortez has mentioned that one
09:48 of the coffins used during filming was specially
09:50 reinforced so that Reynolds could feel the pressure
09:53 of all the sand piling on top of him. All things
09:56 considered, it's really no surprise that he was
09:58 freaking out on a regular basis.
10:00 Number 1 - Christian Bale's fear of the Batsuit in
10:03 Batman Begins
10:04 Going back and watching Batman Begins, it's clear as
10:08 day that the Batsuit wasn't very comfortable for
10:10 Christian Bale to wear. For starters, the design of
10:13 the cowl meant that he couldn't simply turn his head;
10:16 he had to turn his entire upper body if he wanted to
10:19 look in a different direction. And then there's the
10:21 fact that being bolted into a sweaty rubber suit for
10:24 hours at a time doesn't sound like the most enjoyable
10:27 of experiences. The actor himself would agree with
10:30 that, but you might be surprised to learn just how
10:32 uncomfortable the suit truly was. Bale hated it to
10:35 the point of fear, and even came close to throwing
10:38 in the towel and asking the filmmakers to recast
10:40 the role. "I felt like they should recast," Bale
10:43 recalled, while promoting 2012's The Dark Knight
10:46 Rises. "I really did because it was so claustrophobic
10:49 that I didn't feel like I could breathe. I felt
10:51 they've made a mistake and I can't do this."
10:53 Fortunately, Bale developed a method to overcome
10:56 this anxiety, and would ask the crew to leave him
10:59 alone for 15 or 20 minutes while he performed some
11:02 breathing exercises. The success of Batman Begins
11:05 would then lead to one of the greatest movie sequels
11:07 ever made, where Bale was granted the suit upgrade
11:10 he was clearly in need of.
11:12 And that concludes our list. If you can think of any
11:15 that we missed, then do let us know in the comments
11:17 below, and while you're there, don't forget to like
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11:22 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,
11:24 and I can be found across various social medias
11:26 just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:28 I've been Ellie with What Culture, I hope you have
11:31 a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.