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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.
00:11Our 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.
01:07I've always had problems with aeroplanes.
01:09In the film, I'm up on high wires all the time.
01:12We were flying all over the place, sometimes at 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 later
01:23gains 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 shoot
01:37a 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.
01:54I have a phobia, Hayek recalled in a chat with E! News.
01:58It was not in the script.
02:00I agreed to the movie, and then Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino decided that the dance
02:04is with the snake on me.
02:06Understandably, she then refused to do the scene, but when Rodriguez and Tarantino indicated
02:11they'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.
02:33As 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.
02:45In 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
03:04have to climb a 200-foot-tall crane for the movie's opening parkour sequence.
03:09It was borderline fun and fear, said the actor, but there was no time for my fear of heights,
03:14you just have to do it.
03:15And though Craig obviously didn't do every stunt in this scene, he clearly did enough
03:20to 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
03:35and 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
03:41lifetime, with the actor initially refusing to don the stars and stripes of Captain America
03:47because, in 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. He 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. My 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
04:33made. Number six, Jennifer Aniston's fear of going underwater in Cake.
04:39Due to her career-defining role in 90s sitcom Friends, we don't tend to think of Jennifer
04:44Aniston as a dramatic actress. However, in 2014, she was racking up award nominations all over the
04:51place for her work in indie flick Cake, where she plays a woman suffering from chronic pain after
04:56surviving a car accident that killed her son. It was a tough role to take on in general,
05:01but Aniston found one particular aspect of the shoot 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 water
05:11therapy were incredibly difficult for her to do, all because of a childhood incident that led to
05:17her developing a fear of being submerged. She said,
05:20I was a kid and I was riding this tricycle around a swimming pool, and I drove my tricycle into the
05:25swimming pool and I didn't let go, and my brother tried to help me, so I can't go underwater and no one
05:31will believe me. I honestly can't. Aniston's fear was so tricky to overcome that it reportedly took
05:36around 30 takes to get a single pool shot done right. In the end, though, she received a ton of
05:42critical acclaim for her performance, so her bravery paid off.
05:455. Ethan Hawke's Fear of Scary Movies in Sinister
05:50Ethan Hawke and director Scott Derrickson are currently in theatres with their critically acclaimed
05:55horror flick The Black Phone, but this isn't the first time they've collaborated to create a
06:01spooktacular time at the movies. In 2012, their first horror film together, Sinister, was also
06:08well-received by critics, with praise going to its strong performances, shocking finale and creepy
06:13atmosphere. It'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. In the end, though, Hawke discovered that making horror movies was surprisingly
06:46fun. He went on to make The Purge in 2013, and with The Black Phone's success, there will
06:51undoubtedly be more big-screen scares in his future.
06:554. Robert 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. In fact, our current Dark Knight
07:11has a fear that some might think is a tad unusual. He's scared of horses. Pattinson was forced to
07:17confront this fear while making his 2011 romantic drama Water for Elephants, in which he stars as a
07:23promising veterinary student who ends up getting a job at the circus. This required him to interact
07:28with animals like elephants and horses, and though the filmmakers didn't force him to put his jockeying
07:33skills to the test, he did have an encounter with a horse that left him rather shaken. He said,
07:39I had to get knocked down by a horse. That was terrifying. It was just one split second, but it
07:44was a fully grown stallion. I'm kind of relatively scared of horses as well. Pattinson also revealed
07:49that one of his Elephant co-stars picked him up using its mouth, so it doesn't really seem like the
07:54guy 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. In the shower, most of us can
08:06belt out a tune like nobody's watching, which hopefully they aren't. And who doesn't feel like
08:11a pop star after a bit of drunken karaoke? Emma Watson is under no such illusions, however,
08:16with the actress not being confident that she had the vocal chops to star as Belle in Disney's
08:21live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast. She described the prospect of singing on such a grand
08:26stage as terrifying, because it was something she'd never attempted before. There's no doubt that
08:31starring as an iconic Disney character in a $200 million blockbuster was a daunting hill to climb,
08:37but the experience of making Beauty and the Beast actually 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.
08:55Number two, Ryan Reynolds' claustrophobia in Buried. A year before he battled his fear of
09:01flying in Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds was conquering another, much more potent personal
09:06demon during the production of his 2010 thriller Buried, Claustrophobia. In the movie, Reynolds plays
09:13Paul Conroy, a truck driver working in Iraq who wakes up to discover that he's been buried alive.
09:19As you'd expect, much of the film was shot with Reynolds lying in an actual coffin,
09:23and this led to the actor suffering from anxiety, insomnia and complete and utter panic for the
09:29duration of filming. I'd go home and I'd pace until sunup like a vampire and then climb into
09:34a coffin to film, he 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 space for
09:44hours on end. Even worse, director Rodrigo Cortez has mentioned that one of the coffins used during
09:49filming was specially reinforced so that Reynolds could feel the pressure of all the sand piling
09:54on top of him. All things considered, it's really no surprise that he was freaking out on a regular
09:59basis.
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 comfortable for
10:10Christian Bale to wear. For starters, the design of the cow meant that he couldn't simply turn his head,
10:16he had to turn his entire upper body if he wanted to look in a different direction.
10:21And then there's the fact that being bolted into a sweaty rubber suit for hours at a time doesn't
10:25sound like the most enjoyable of experiences. The actor himself would agree with that, but you might
10:31be surprised to learn just how uncomfortable the suit truly was. Bale hated it to the point of fear
10:36and even came close to throwing in the towel and asking the filmmakers 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. The success of Batman Begins
11:05would then lead to one of the greatest movie sequels ever made, where Bale was granted the suit
11:10upgrade 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
11:21that notification 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. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture.
11:30I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real soon.
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