The Dark Knight isn't so fearless after all.
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00:00Sometimes, the production of a movie will require actors to do
00:03something they might not be comfortable with, whether that's
00:06learning an incredibly difficult skill, or even facing a deep-
00:09seated fear. Our big screen heroes might seem all cool and
00:13infallible, but they're still mere mortals, just like the rest
00:17of us. So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:20here with 10 Movies That Forced Actors to Face Their Fears.
00:2410. Ryan Reynolds' Fear of Flying in Green Lantern
00:29There are many reasons why Ryan Reynolds probably regrets doing
00:32Green Lantern. The film was trounced by critics, and has
00:36become such a laughingstock in the years since that Deadpool 2
00:40even saw Reynolds joke about killing himself before he could
00:43sign on for the project. Green Lantern wasn't a total waste of
00:47time, though. Not only did Reynolds meet his future wife
00:50Blake lively while shooting the film, but the experience of
00:53starring in a superhero epic also allowed the sharp-tongued
00:57Canadian to overcome one of his biggest fears, flying. As
01:01Reynolds explained on the Today Show while promoting the film,
01:04I'm a little afraid to fly. I've always had problems with
01:08aeroplanes. In the film, I'm up on high wires all the time. We
01:11were flying all over the place, sometimes at 60 feet per second.
01:15It was really interesting and really terrifying at first.
01:18Having a fear of flying, and yet signing up for a film where
01:22your character is a pilot who later gains the power of flight?
01:25That's a boss move right there.
01:27Number 9. Salma Hayek's fear of snakes in From Dusk Till Dawn
01:32Though you'd expect the filmmakers and actors to be on the
01:35same page before agreeing to shoot a movie together, that
01:38isn't always the case. Just ask Salma Hayek, who agreed to star
01:42in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's horror thriller
01:45From Dusk Till Dawn, only to be thrown one hell of a curveball
01:49when the time came to shoot her famous dance scene.
01:52That curveball? An enormous snake.
01:55I have a phobia, Hayek recalled in a chat with E! News. It was
01:58not in the script. I agreed to the movie, and then Robert
02:01Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino decided that the dance is with
02:05the snake on me. Understandably, she then refused to do the
02:08scene, but when Rodriguez and Tarantino indicated they'd be
02:11willing to replace her, Hayek opted to conquer her fear rather
02:15than walk away.
02:16Frankly, I really needed to pay the rent, she added.
02:198. Daniel Craig's Fear of Heights in Casino Royale
02:24It's easy to forget these days, but back in the mid-2000s,
02:27there was a lot of backlash over the casting of Daniel Craig
02:31as the next James Bond. As casting director Devi McWilliams
02:35recalled in a recent chat with Entertainment Weekly,
02:38It was unbelievably negative, I have to say. The press
02:41response was awful, and I felt so sorry for him.
02:44In the end, Craig proved the doubters wrong when the brilliant
02:47Casino Royale released in November 2006. But it wasn't just
02:52the press that the blue-eyed Brit had to overcome in the early
02:55days of his 007 journey. It was his own personal fears.
02:59More specifically, Craig's fear of heights reared its head when
03:02he was told that he would have to climb a 200-foot-tall crane
03:06for the movie's opening parkour sequence.
03:09It was borderline fun and fear, said the actor, but there was
03:12no time for my fear of heights. You just have to do it.
03:15And though Craig obviously didn't do every stunt in this scene,
03:18he clearly did enough to make himself rather terrified.
03:227. Chris Evans' Fear of Taking on a Life-Changing Role in
03:26Captain America The First Avenger
03:29Chris Evans may be a kick-ass superhero on the big screen, but
03:33he has just as much anxiety and stress in his life as anyone
03:36else. In fact, it was these mental struggles that nearly
03:39caused him to pass on the role of a lifetime, with the actor
03:43initially refusing to don the stars and stripes of Captain
03:46America because, in his own words, it was the thing that I
03:49was most scared of. While promoting Captain America The
03:52First Avenger back in 2011, Evans described how he was
03:56initially quite fearful of taking on the part, mainly
04:00because he was hesitant to sign his soul away to a six-picture
04:03deal, but also because he didn't want all the fame and
04:06attention that would come with being a gigantic movie star.
04:09He said, I chose to do this movie because it was the thing
04:12that I think I was the most scared of. I was scared because
04:15initially it was nine pictures. Then it came down to six
04:18movies. Even six movies. That's ten years, dude. My freedom
04:22is gone if I do this movie. It clearly worked out for the
04:26best, though, and in recent years, Evans has talked about
04:28how pushing through that fear and taking the role was one of
04:31the best decisions he ever made.
04:346. Jennifer Aniston's Fear of Going Underwater in Cake
04:39Due to her career-defining role in 90s sitcom Friends,
04:42we don't tend to think of Jennifer Aniston as a dramatic
04:45actress. However, in 2014, she was racking up award
04:49nominations all over the place for her work in indie flick
04:53Cake, where she plays a woman suffering from chronic pain
04:56after surviving a car accident that killed her son. It was a
04:59tough role to take on in general, but Aniston found one
05:02particular aspect of the shoot far more challenging than the
05:06rest. In a chat with E! News, she described how a select few
05:09scenes in which her character undergoes water therapy were
05:12incredibly difficult for her to do, all because of a childhood
05:16incident that led to her developing a fear of being
05:19submerged. She said,
05:20I was a kid and I was riding this tricycle around a
05:23swimming pool and I drove my tricycle into the swimming pool
05:26and I didn't let go and my brother tried to help me. So I
05:29can't go underwater and no one will believe me. I honestly
05:32can't. Aniston's fear was so tricky to overcome that it
05:35reportedly took around 30 takes to get a single pool shot
05:39done right. In the end, though, she received a ton of
05:41critical acclaim for her performance, so her bravery
05:44paid off. Number 5, Ethan Hawke's Fear of Scary Movies in
05:49Sinister. Ethan Hawke and director Scott Derrickson are
05:53currently in theatres with their critically acclaimed
05:55horror flick, The Black Phone, but this isn't the first time
05:59they've collaborated to create a spooktacular time at the
06:02movies. In 2012, their first horror film together, Sinister,
06:07was also well received by critics, with praise going to
06:10its strong performances, shocking finale, and creepy
06:13atmosphere. It's an effective movie, no doubt, and it was the
06:16thought of being involved with something so scary that nearly
06:19made Hawke pass on the role entirely. For years, I never
06:23wanted to make one of these movies, he said while promoting
06:25the film. It's because I thought it would be absolutely
06:28terrifying to make it. Producer Jason Blum had actually been
06:32trying to get Hawke to do a horror movie since Paranormal
06:35Activity in 2007, but the actor always refused, simply because
06:39he thought the experience would be too traumatic. In the end,
06:43though, Hawke discovered that making horror movies was
06:45surprisingly fun. He went on to make The Purge in 2013, and
06:49with The Black Phone's success, there will undoubtedly be more
06:52big screen scares in his future. Number 4, Robert Pattinson's
06:57Fear of Horses in Water for Elephants. Robert Pattinson was
07:01last seen as the embodiment of bad guy's fear in Matt Reeves'
07:05The Batman, but that doesn't mean the actor is a fearless
07:08badass in reality. In fact, our current Dark Knight has a fear
07:11that some might think is a tad unusual. He's scared of horses.
07:15Pattinson was forced to confront this fear while making his
07:182011 romantic drama Water for Elephants, in which he stars as
07:23a promising veterinary student who ends up getting a job at the
07:26circus. This required him to interact with animals like
07:29elephants and horses, and though the filmmakers didn't force him
07:32to put his jockeying skills to the test, he did have an
07:35encounter with a horse that left him rather shaken. He said,
07:39I had to get knocked down by a horse. That was terrifying. It
07:42was just one split second, but it was a fully grown stallion.
07:45I'm kind of relatively scared of horses as well. Pattinson
07:48also revealed that one of his elephant co-stars picked him up
07:51using its mouth, so it doesn't really seem like the guy had the
07:54best of luck around animals. Number 3, Emma Watson's Fear of
07:58Singing in Beauty and the Beast We all have those moments where
08:02we think that we're pretty good at singing. In the shower, most
08:06of us can belt out a tune like nobody's watching, which
08:09hopefully they aren't. And who doesn't feel like a pop star
08:12after a bit of drunken karaoke? Emma Watson is under no such
08:15illusions, however, with the actress not being confident that
08:18she had the vocal chops to star as Belle in Disney's live action
08:22remake of Beauty and the Beast. She described the prospect of
08:25singing on such a grand stage as terrifying, because it was
08:28something she'd never attempted before. There's no doubt that
08:31starring as an iconic Disney character in a $200 million
08:35blockbuster was a daunting hill to climb, but the experience of
08:38making Beauty and the Beast actually helped Watson combat
08:41her fear. She said, I was afraid to sing in front of three
08:44people, and by the end, I was singing live in front of 300.
08:48She also received praise for her performance, and the film
08:51grossed over a billion dollars to boot. So, not really a bad
08:54result.
08:55Number 2. Ryan Reynolds' Claustrophobia in Buried
08:59A year before he battled his fear of flying in Green Lantern,
09:03Ryan Reynolds was conquering another, much more potent
09:06personal demon during the production of his 2010 thriller
09:10Buried, Claustrophobia. In the movie, Reynolds plays Paul
09:13Conroy, a truck driver working in Iraq who wakes up to discover
09:17that he's been buried alive. As you'd expect, much of the film
09:21was shot with Reynolds lying in an actual coffin, and this led
09:24to the actor suffering from anxiety, insomnia, and complete
09:28and utter panic for the duration of filming.
09:30I'd go home and I'd pace until sun up, like a vampire, and
09:33then climb into a coffin to film, he said. I was losing my
09:36mind. I hadn't slept in days, weeks.
09:39Reynolds also suffered from frequent panic attacks due to
09:42being enclosed in such a tight space for hours on end.
09:45Even worse, director Rodrigo Cortez has mentioned that one of
09:48the coffins used during filming was specially reinforced so
09:51that Reynolds could feel the pressure of all the sand piling
09:54on top of him.
09:55All things considered, it's really no surprise that he was
09:58freaking out on a regular basis.
10:00Number 1. Christian Bale's fear of the Batsuit in Batman Begins
10:05Going back and watching Batman Begins, it's clear as day that
10:08the Batsuit wasn't very comfortable for Christian Bale to
10:11wear. For starters, the design of the cowl meant that he
10:14couldn't simply turn his head. He had to turn his entire upper
10:18body if he wanted to look in a different direction.
10:21And then there's the fact that being bolted into a sweaty
10:23rubber suit for hours at a time doesn't sound like the most
10:26enjoyable of experiences.
10:28The actor himself would agree with that, but you might be
10:31surprised to learn just how uncomfortable the suit truly was.
10:34Bale hated it to the point of fear, and even came close to
10:37throwing in the towel and asking the filmmakers to recast the
10:40role.
10:41I felt like they should recast, Bale recalled, while promoting
10:442012's The Dark Knight Rises.
10:47I really did because it was so claustrophobic that I didn't
10:49feel like I could breathe. I felt they've made a mistake and
10:52I can't do this.
10:53Fortunately, Bale developed a method to overcome this anxiety
10:57and would ask the crew to leave him alone for 15 or 20 minutes
11:01while he performed some breathing exercises.
11:03The success of Batman Begins would then lead to one of the
11:06greatest movie sequels ever made, where Bale was granted the
11:10suit upgrade he was clearly in need of.
11:13And that concludes our list. If you can think of any that we
11:15missed, then do let us know in the comments below. And while
11:18you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that
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11:24there, and I can be found across various social medias just by
11:27searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:29I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day,
11:32and I'll see you real soon.