It may feel difficult sitting on your couch, lifting a remote, and pressing “play” to start a movie, but for the actors in front of the camera, it can be even harder. The Onion asked some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities about their most difficult roles on and off the silver screen.
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Christian Bale, on Vice: “I spent months researching Dick Cheney, fully immersing myself in the ‘Controversy Section’ of his Wikipedia page. That’s when I learned about 9/11.”
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Lin Manuel Miranda, on Hamilton: “Ethically, I think the hardest part of playing Alexander Hamilton was allowing people to pay me to sing and dance like a little baby boy.”
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Brandon Lee, on The Crow: “I died!”
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Clint Eastwood, on In the Line of Fire: “The director was some Kraut named Petersen. Son of a bitch walks up to me, says we’re doing a third take. I directed myself for the next 2 years.”
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Francis McDormand, on Fargo: “That accent is just so goddamn stupid.”
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Viggo Mortensen, on Lord Of The Rings: “Every time I was in a scene with Elijah Wood, I would turn to Orlando Bloom and ask, ‘Wow, isn’t that Elijah Wood?’ I was told over and over that Aragorn wouldn’t have any idea who Elijah Wood was, but I just wanted to be sure.”
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Martin Scorsese, on The Black Widow: “I still believe Marvel represents the degradation of cinema, but you don’t say ‘no’ when they offer you the role of Tigra.”
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Denzel Washington, on Malcolm X: “It didn’t come easy. I had to spend a whole year of my life learning how to walk, open my eyes, form coherent words, use a toilet, and stop breastfeeding before I could even begin to inhabit this role.”
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Sam Neill, on Jurassic Park: “Whenever a character was killed on screen, Steven Spielberg would stop filming and insist we hold a funeral. He made me give a eulogy for Dennis Nedry.”
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Vin Diesel, on The Fast And The Furious: “Everyone thought it was special effects, but believe it or not, that was really me making all those car sounds.”
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Macaulay Culkin, on Home Alone: “I really struggled to scream during the cologne scene. But then, John Hughes told me that children never fully recover from the emotional trauma of entering Hollywood at such a young age.”
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Bryan Cranston, on Breaking Bad: “When I first read the script, I had so many technical questions. That night I called Vince Gilligan in a panic and he had to explain to me in detail what New Mexico is.”
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Robert Downey Jr., on Avengers: Endgame: “As soon as I read the check, I was in.”
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Shelley Duvall, on The Shining: “We did 127 takes, and after each take, Stanley would say, ‘Perfect. Let’s just do one more for fun.’ But there comes a point at which you can’t be having any more fun than you already are.”
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Kiefer Sutherland, on The Lost Boys: “It wasn’t until I walked onto the set that first night that I realized no one else was a real vampire and had been hiding from the sun all day in a trailer filled with native soil.”
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Gary Oldman, on Darkest Hour: “Do you know how hard it is to focus on acting knowing that your family is being held hostage by the Russian mob and they’ll be killed if you don’t deliver them an Oscar?”
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Saoirse Ronan, on Lady Bird: “Playing a character like Lady Bird was especially challenging because I had no personal experience growing up. Doctors still don’t understand how I emerged from the womb as a fully grown adult.”
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Jessica Chastain, on Zero Dark Thirty: “I wanted my performance to be as realistic as possible, so I assassinated Osama bin Laden several years before the film started shooting. I think it all paid off in the end.”
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Brad Pitt, on Se7en: “I really didn’t know what was in the box. I was kind of expecting a sweater.”
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Anne Hathaway, on Les Miserables: “By that last take, I was just so fucking sick of the song. I think it came across.”