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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 something they might not be comfortable with,
00:05whether that's learning an incredibly difficult skill or even facing a deep-seated fear.
00:10Our big-screen heroes might seem all cool and infallible, but they're still mere mortals, just like the rest of us.
00:17So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here 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 Green Lantern.
00:34The film was trounced by critics and has become such a laughingstock in the years since
00:39that Deadpool 2 even saw Reynolds joke about killing himself before he could sign on for the project.
00:45Green Lantern wasn't a total waste of time, though.
00:48Not only did Reynolds meet his future wife, Blake, lively while shooting the film,
00:52but the experience of starring in a superhero epic also allowed the sharp-tongued Canadian
00:57to overcome one of his biggest fears.
01:00Flying.
01:01As Reynolds explained on the Today Show while promoting the film,
01:04I'm a little afraid to fly.
01:06I've always had problems with aeroplanes.
01:08In the film, I'm up on high wires all the time.
01:11We were flying all over the place, sometimes it's 60 feet per second.
01:15It was really interesting and really terrifying at first.
01:19Having a fear of flying and yet signing up for a film where your character is a pilot who
01:23later gains the power of flight?
01:25That's a boss move right there.
01:279. Salma Hayek's Fear of Snakes in From Dusk Till Dawn
01:32Though you'd expect the filmmakers and actors to be on the same page before agreeing to
01:37shoot a movie together, that isn't always the case.
01:40Just ask Salma Hayek, who agreed to star in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's
01:45horror thriller From Dusk Till Dawn, only to be thrown one hell of a curveball when the
01:49time came to shoot her famous dance scene.
01:52That curveball?
01:53An enormous snake.
01:55I have a phobia, Hayek recalled in a chat with E! News.
01:58It was not in the script, I agreed to the movie, and then Robert Rodriguez and Quentin
02:02Tarantino decided that the dance is with the snake on me.
02:06Understandably, she then refused to do the scene, but when Rodriguez and Tarantino indicated
02:10they'd be willing to replace her, Hayek opted to conquer her fear rather than walk away.
02:16Frankly, I really needed to pay the rent, she added.
02:198. Daniel Craig's Fear of Heights in Casino Royale
02:23It's easy to forget these days, but back in the mid-2000s, there was a lot of backlash
02:29over the casting of Daniel Craig as the next James Bond.
02:32As casting director Debbie McWilliams recalled in a recent chat with Entertainment Weekly,
02:37It was unbelievably negative, I have to say.
02:41The press response was awful, and I felt so sorry for him.
02:44In the end, Craig proved the doubters wrong when the brilliant Casino Royale released in
02:49November 2006, but it wasn't just the press that the blue-eyed Brit had to overcome in
02:54the early days of his 007 journey, it was his own personal fears.
02:59More specifically, Craig's fear of heights reared its head when he was told that he would
03:03have to climb a 200-foot-tall crane for the movie's opening parkour sequence.
03:09It was borderline fun and fierce, said the actor, but there was no time for my fear of
03:13heights, you just have to do it.
03:15And though Craig obviously didn't do every stunt in this scene, he clearly did enough
03:19to make himself rather terrified.
03:227.
03:23Chris Evans' Fear of Taking on a Life-Changing Role in Captain America The First Avenger
03:29Chris Evans may be a kick-ass superhero on the big screen, but he has just as much anxiety
03:34and stress in his life as anyone else.
03:37In fact, it was these mental struggles that nearly caused him to pass on the role of a lifetime,
03:42with the actor initially refusing to don the stars and stripes of Captain America, because
03:47in his own words, it was the thing that I was most scared of.
03:51While promoting Captain America The First Avenger back in 2011, Evans described how he was initially
03:57quite fearful of taking on the part, mainly because he was hesitant to sign his soul away
04:02to a six-picture deal, but also because he didn't want all the fame and attention that
04:07would come with being a gigantic movie star.
04:09He said,
04:10I chose to do this movie because it was the thing that I think I was the most scared of.
04:14I was scared because initially it was nine pictures, then it came down to six movies.
04:19Even six movies, that's ten years, dude.
04:22My freedom is gone if I do this movie.
04:24It clearly worked out for the best though, and in recent years, Evans has talked about
04:28how pushing through that fear and taking the role was one of the best decisions he ever made.
04:346.
04:35Jennifer Aniston's Fear of Going Underwater in Cake
04:38Due to her career-defining role in 90s sitcom Friends, we don't tend to think of Jennifer
04:44Aniston as a dramatic actress.
04:46However, in 2014, she was racking up award nominations all over the place for her work
04:51in indie flick Cake, where she plays a woman suffering from chronic pain after surviving
04:57a car accident that killed her son.
04:59It was a tough role to take on in general, but Aniston found one particular aspect of the
05:04shoot far more challenging than the rest.
05:06In a chat with E! News, she described how a select few scenes in which her character undergoes
05:11water therapy were incredibly difficult for her to do, all because of a childhood incident
05:16that led to her developing a fear of being submerged.
05:19She said,
05:20I was a kid and I was riding this tricycle around a swimming pool, and I drove my tricycle
05:25into the swimming pool and I didn't let go, and my brother tried to help me.
05:29So, I can't go underwater and no one will believe me.
05:31I honestly can't.
05:33Aniston's fear was so tricky to overcome that it reportedly took around 30 takes to
05:37get a single pool shot done right.
05:40In the end, though, she received a ton of critical acclaim for her performance, so her bravery
05:44paid off.
05:45Number 5. Ethan Hawke's Fear of Scary Movies in Sinister
05:50Ethan Hawke and director Scott Derrickson are currently in theatres with their critically
05:55acclaimed horror flick The Black Phone, but this isn't the first time they've collaborated
06:00to create a spooktacular time at the movies.
06:03In 2012, their first horror film together, Sinister, was also well-received by critics, with praise
06:09going to its strong performances, shocking finale, and creepy atmosphere.
06:14It's an effective movie, no doubt, and it was the thought of being involved with something
06:18so scary that nearly made Hawke pass on the role entirely.
06:22For years, I never wanted to make one of these movies, he said, while promoting the film.
06:26It's because I thought it would be absolutely terrifying to make it.
06:30Producer Jason Blum had actually been trying to get Hawke to do a horror movie since Paranormal
06:35Activity in 2007, but the actor always refused, simply because he thought the experience would
06:41be too traumatic.
06:42In the end, though, Hawke discovered that making horror movies was surprisingly fun.
06:46He went on to make The Purge in 2013, and with The Black Phone's success, there will undoubtedly
06:52be more big-screen scares in his future.
06:55Number 4.
06:56Robert Pattinson's Fear of Horses in Water for Elephants
07:00Robert Pattinson was last seen as the embodiment of bad guy's fear in Matt Reeves' The Batman,
07:06but that doesn't mean the actor is a fearless badass in reality.
07:09In fact, our current Dark Knight has a fear that some might think is a tad unusual.
07:14He's scared of horses.
07:15Pattinson was forced to confront this fear while making his 2011 romantic drama Water for Elephants,
07:21in which he stars as a promising veterinary student who ends up getting a job at the circus.
07:27This required him to interact with animals like elephants and horses, and though the
07:31filmmakers didn't force him to put his jockeying skills to the test, he did have an encounter
07:36with a horse that left him rather shaken.
07:38He said,
07:39I had to get knocked down by a horse.
07:41That was terrifying.
07:42It was just one split second, but it was a fully grown stallion.
07:45I'm kind of relatively scared of horses as well.
07:48Pattinson also 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 best of luck around animals.
07:563. Emma Watson's Fear of Singing in Beauty and the Beast
08:00We all have those moments where we think that we're pretty good at singing.
08:05In the shower, most of us can belt out a tune like nobody's watching, which hopefully they aren't.
08:10And who doesn't feel like a pop star after a bit of drunken karaoke?
08:14Emma Watson is under no such illusions, however, with the actress not being confident that she
08:18had the vocal chops to star as Belle in Disney's live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast.
08:23She described the prospect of singing on such a grand stage as terrifying,
08:28because it was something she'd never attempted before.
08:30There's no doubt that starring as an iconic Disney character in a $200 million blockbuster
08:35was a daunting hill to climb, but the experience of making Beauty and the Beast
08:40actually helped Watson combat her fear. She said,
08:43I was afraid to sing in front of three people, and by the end, I was singing live in front of 300.
08:48She also received praise for her performance, and the film grossed over a billion dollars to boot.
08:53So, not really a bad result.
08:552. Ryan Reynolds' Claustrophobia in Buried
08:59A year before he battled his fear of flying in Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds was conquering
09:04another much more potent personal demon during the production of his 2010 thriller Buried,
09:10Claustrophobia.
09:12In the movie, Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a truck driver working in Iraq who wakes up to
09:17discover that he's been buried alive. As you'd expect, much of the film was shot with Reynolds
09:22lying in an actual coffin, and this led to the actor's suffering from anxiety, insomnia,
09:27and complete and utter panic for the duration of filming.
09:30I'd go home and I'd pace until sunup, like a vampire, and then climb into a coffin to film,
09:35he said. I was losing my mind. I hadn't slept in days, weeks.
09:39Reynolds also suffered from frequent panic attacks due to being enclosed in such a tight
09:43space for hours on end. Even worse, director Rodrigo Cortez has mentioned that one of the
09:48coffins used during filming was specially reinforced so that Reynolds could feel the pressure of all
09:53the sand piling on top of him.
09:55All things considered, it's really no surprise that he was freaking out on a regular basis.
10:001. Christian Bale's Fear of the Batsuit in Batman Begins
10:04Going back and watching Batman Begins, it's clear as day that the Batsuit wasn't very
10:09comfortable for Christian Bale to wear. For starters, the design of the cowl meant that
10:14he couldn't simply turn his head, he had to turn his entire upper body if he wanted to look in a
10:19different direction. And then there's the fact that being bolted into a sweaty rubber suit for hours
10:24at a time doesn't sound like the most enjoyable of experiences. The actor himself would agree with
10:30that, but you might be surprised to learn just how uncomfortable the suit truly was.
10:35Bale hated it to the point of fear and even came close to throwing in the towel and asking the
10:39filmmakers to recast the role.
10:41I felt like they should recast, Bale recalled, while promoting 2012's The Dark Knight Rises.
10:47I really did because it was so claustrophobic that I didn't feel like I could breathe.
10:51I felt they've made a mistake and I can't do this.
10:54Fortunately, Bale developed a method to overcome this anxiety and would ask the crew to leave him
10:59alone for 15 or 20 minutes while he performed some breathing exercises.
11:03The success of Batman Begins would then lead to one of the greatest movie sequels
11:07ever made, where Bale was granted the suit upgrade he was clearly in need of.
11:13And that concludes our list. If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know
11:17in the comments below and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that
11:21notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there and I can be found across
11:26various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:28I've been Ellie with WhatCulture. I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real soon.
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