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Hollywood stars are known for pushing through pain, but some went far beyond dedication by keeping serious illnesses secret while filming. From grueling physical transformations to hidden cancer battles and chronic conditions, these performances came with real-life struggles the cast and crew never saw coming. Which of these shocking behind-the-scenes health stories surprised you most? Let us know in the comments below!
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00:00I think it's like 1 in 10 or something under 40 because people think of it as something that
00:04affects older people. Welcome to Ms. Mojo and today we're looking at actors who refused to
00:08disclose to their colleagues that they were seriously sick during film productions.
00:12Was he scared? Of course. I mean a lot of folks, myself included, didn't even know he was sick
00:17until the end. Matt Damon, Courage Under Fire. Even though he only filmed for two days as the
00:24traumatized soldier Andrew Ilario, an up-and-coming Matt Damon had something to prove. He reportedly
00:29dropped around 50 pounds in three months, consuming about 100 calories and running up to 13 miles in
00:35Texas heat every day. Authentically representing his character's intense emaciation wrecked his adrenal
00:51glands. Still, Damon powered through the disorientation and hot flashes to keep from
00:55passing out, never mind tipping off the crew of Courage Under Fire.
00:59Aldermeyer is dying.
01:06Aren't we all?
01:07Doctors later told him that he could have caused permanent heart damage and put him on medication
01:12for a year and a half. That kind of unsupervised method acting wasn't so much Courage Under Fire
01:17literally as it was careless.
01:19You think that matters?
01:28No.
01:28Richard Pryor. See no evil, hear no evil.
01:31We all got our morbid laughs at Richard Pryor's pratfalls as the sight-impaired Wally Carew in
01:36See no evil, hear no evil. Really, the physical commitment was no joke.
01:53Pryor had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986 and underwent treatment for years before
01:58even his colleagues knew it. They really put his deteriorating physicality through the ringer on this
02:03production, though it did allow him to study cane technique at the Braille Institute.
02:07I went to the Braille Institute.
02:10Serious?
02:11Yes, ma'am.
02:12Okay. All right, tell me more.
02:14I went there about two weeks and they taught me things that I didn't know.
02:20Gene Wilder actually rewrote comedy beats to cover Pryor's slowed delivery,
02:25plausibly perceived as character work. Certainly, the legendary comedian was serious enough about acting
02:30to not let his condition disrupt even the wackiest art.
02:33Gene was aware of it, so when he rewrote this beautiful script that we got, I was so happy,
02:38you know, and our director Arthur Heller was conscious of it so that we wouldn't offend anyone.
02:43Anton Yelchin, Star Trek Beyond
02:45This tragically brief yet prolific acting career is all the more impressive for the underlying secret
02:50throughout it. Anton Yelchin was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a child, but never even disclosed it
02:56in professional confidence to avoid being limited.
02:58Try to play as many characters as possible and have the characters be as diverse as possible and
03:04try to embody them and change them character to character, and that's what I really look for is the ability
03:10to do that.
03:10His condition became debilitating by the time he shot Star Trek Beyond,
03:14which featured particularly demanding stunt work for Ensign Pavel Chekhov.
03:18Yelchin secretly underwent daily airway treatments in his trailer
03:21and would time nebulizers to conceal labors in his breathing.
03:24He always liked to know more, not only about us, about us as well, but about other people's lives.
03:31He always tried to get into some people's lives, and probably he learned lessons from every conversation with anybody.
03:38His mother would later say this convinced him to finally go public with his CF
03:42after landing the TV series Mr. Mercedes.
03:44Instead, Yelchin died in a car accident on June 19, 2016, aged 27.
03:50A rising star, known for his work on Star Trek.
03:53He was killed, trapped between his SUV and his driveway gate.
03:57Tom Hanks, cast away.
03:59To be recognized as one of Hollywood's greatest actors,
04:02Tom Hanks hasn't had much luck with method performances.
04:05He was so dedicated to Chuck Nolan's transformative island stranding
04:08that he downplayed a cut on his left leg from coral.
04:11Higher, chef!
04:13Over here!
04:14Hey!
04:15He figured the diet was behind the fatigue that underscored the intensity of his Golden Globe winning performance.
04:20Eventually, though, he had to talk to director Robert Zemeckis,
04:23who sent Hanks to emergency surgery.
04:25We have to make rope again.
04:31Listen, we're gonna have to make a hell of a lot of rope.
04:33Production on Cast Away was paused for three weeks
04:36while the lead actor recovered from a near-fatal brush with sepsis.
04:39Even an artist of Hanks' caliber needs to learn his limitations.
04:43Unfortunately, he would later attribute his dramatic weight changes on this and other projects
04:47to his onset of type 2 diabetes.
04:49Aging itself can lower the ability of the pancreas to make insulin,
04:53and it can lower the ability of the body to respond to it.
04:56So you have that, plus a genetic tendency,
04:58it can all add up to diabetes as you get older.
05:01Raul Julia, Street Fighter.
05:03The revered Raul Julia suspected that a film adaptation of the Street Fighter video games
05:07would end up a critical disaster.
05:09Still, he took the project for his young sons, who loved the games,
05:12after he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
05:15He loved to talk about life, about everything.
05:18He was a man with lots of culture,
05:20so he was like a great person to be with, and a great family.
05:24This allowed him to spend more time with family
05:27while researching the role of the villainous M. Bison.
05:30Julia confided in director Stephen E. D'Souza,
05:32but accepted the brutal conditions and physical demands
05:35of an action blockbuster like any other actor.
05:37For I beheld Satan, and he fell from heaven like lightning!
05:47After a while, however, it was hard to miss his dramatic weight loss.
05:50After giving a commanding performance in the otherwise maligned Street Fighter,
05:54Julia succumbed to a stroke during cancer treatment before the film's release.
05:58The versatile star of film and stage died Monday of complications from a stroke.
06:02He was 54.
06:03Julia was known for his great range,
06:06playing everything from comedy to Shakespeare to dramatic roles with great intensity.
06:10Anthony Perkins, In the Deep Woods
06:12Horror icon Anthony Perkins spent much of his career
06:15experiencing the real horror of hiding and occasionally suppressing his sexuality.
06:20This continued even after he learned he was HIV positive in 1990,
06:24from reading about the diagnosis leak in the newspaper.
06:26Yesterday hundreds, today thousands, and tomorrow maybe millions will have to change their ideas
06:32about the meaning of time.
06:35AIDS.
06:36There's no time like now to find out the truth about it.
06:39Perkins did not inform his colleagues that the condition had escalated to AIDS
06:43by the time he did the TV movie In the Deep Woods.
06:46The gaunt role of private detective Paul Miller allowed him to mask his deterioration,
06:50though he was frequently absent with the flu.
06:52I can't let him get away again.
06:55He killed Margo.
06:57Please, please.
07:00You've got to help me.
07:02Perkins sadly had to struggle with stigma even on set to the end of his life,
07:05one month before In the Dark Woods aired on NBC in 1992.
07:10Anthony Perkins died Saturday at his home in Hollywood from complications of AIDS.
07:14Perkins kept his illness private because, as he put it,
07:17the problems of one old actor don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
07:21Alan Rickman, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
07:24It wasn't unprecedented for an iconic Harry Potter character to be recast under tragic circumstances.
07:30Richard Harris managed to conceal his Hodgkin's disease for two films
07:33before Michael Gambon took over Dumbledore.
07:35Headmaster, these boys have flouted the decree for the restriction of underage wizardry.
07:41As such.
07:43I am well aware of our bylaws, Severus, having written quite a few of them myself.
07:48So, Alan Rickman considered turning down the Order of the Phoenix,
07:51only to realize that he couldn't abandon Fenn's incomparable image of Severus Snape.
07:55He underwent surgery to remove his prostate,
07:58then endured a long recovery throughout production,
08:01with cast and crew being none the wiser.
08:03What is he talking about, Snape?
08:11No idea.
08:12Ten years later, the cancer reached his pancreas,
08:15but he kept this private while filming Eye in the Sky.
08:17Rickman passed away shortly thereafter,
08:20his robust legacy enriched by a clear dedication to his art.
08:23Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.
08:30Michael J. Fox, The Frighteners
08:32It was seven years before prolific TV and movie star Michael J. Fox
08:36told the public about his Parkinson's disease.
08:38He didn't even disclose it to colleagues,
08:40though that wasn't too much of a problem
08:42before he played ghost hunter Frank Bannister in The Frighteners.
08:45I can communicate with the other side.
08:48I can see spirits.
08:52I don't know why.
08:53I can't understand it.
08:55Peter Jackson's extensive New Zealand night shoots
08:58and demanding horror comedy set pieces took a heavy toll.
09:01Fox successfully hid his tremors,
09:03but his condition could no longer be reconciled
09:05with the stress of high-concept projects without accommodation.
09:07It's amazing how much I love being an environmental lobbyist,
09:11although not everybody loves us,
09:13especially the conservatives.
09:14I just met this junior senator from Ohio.
09:16What a stiff.
09:18Alex P. Keaton.
09:19It was with his return to a long-form format with Spin City
09:22that he decided to come forward about his Parkinson's in 1998,
09:26and the health advocate has been courageously fighting it
09:29beyond any expectations ever since.
09:31So when I say everything's cool with me,
09:33it doesn't necessarily mean that someone that you know
09:35and may be in the same situation,
09:36that they're being a jerk if they say they're having a hard time
09:39because, you know, it's not necessarily a picnic.
09:41Yusaku Matsuda.
09:42Black Rain.
09:43The distinguished career of Japanese actor Yusaku Matsuda
09:46was poised to break into Hollywood
09:47through the Ridley Scott action thriller Black Rain.
09:52But shortly after landing the coveted role of Yakuza Koji Sato,
09:56he was diagnosed with bladder cancer.
09:58Matsuda would not tell his colleagues about this
10:00or his decision to postpone chemotherapy
10:02for fear that it would compromise his domineering performance.
10:11Scott and company would eventually become aware of the cancer
10:14but not the degree of its severity
10:16until it escalated beyond treatment
10:18by the end of production in 1989.
10:20Matsuda died in November
10:22and Black Rain was dedicated to his memory
10:24as a professional to a tragic fault.
10:33It wasn't just audiences who were shocked
10:36by Chadwick Boseman's death from colon cancer in 2020.
10:43Not even his Marvel bosses and co-stars knew he was diagnosed
10:47after originating the role of T'Challa
10:49in 2016's Captain America Civil War
10:51then continued playing Black Panther throughout treatment.
10:54He kept this policy
10:55while also starring in 21 Bridges,
10:57Da 5 Bloods,
10:58and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.
11:00That last performance
11:01would win Boseman's scores of accolades,
11:03all of them posthumous.
11:04You think I care about being fired?
11:06I don't care nothing about that.
11:07You doing me a favor.
11:08Color Levy's out.
11:09You ain't playing in my band no more.
11:10I'm fired?
11:11Good.
11:12Best thing that ever happened to me.
11:14His widow, Taylor Simone Ledward,
11:16would assert that this secrecy
11:17was not about protecting his reputation
11:19but protecting the work.
11:20That said,
11:21those undoubtedly challenging four years
11:23were enough to turn Boseman's career
11:25from exceptional to immortal.
11:27What's more important about Chad
11:29is the way that he lived.
11:30The fact that he wouldn't let cancer
11:32get in the way of what he was here to do.
11:35Let that be the lesson.
11:37What were some other on-set illnesses
11:38that actors kept under wraps?
11:40Disclose in the comments.
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