All it takes for us audiences to pass judgment on films is just seconds. All we forget is the fact that the cast and the crew put so much effort into making it. With the advent of technology and special effects, the actors have to put as much effort as possible. All they see when commoners look at movie stars is glamor and lots of money, but on the other hand, as they claim, the grass is always greener. While the life of the actor comes with perks such as money and fame, it also has a dark side that is likely to go unnoticed. Some actors go that extra mile to make it more credible to get into the skin of their characters. To do so, they are pushing themselves to such extreme limits that it sometimes takes more effort to actually emerge from it. Some characters latch so badly on the actors that they have a profound impact on the actors and their normal lives. Through crazy weight loss and gain, changes in lifestyle and physical training to distance from the rest of the world are just a few of the ways in which these actors go to extreme lengths to get into character.
Movie: Padmaavat & Lootera

For almost any character he plays, Ranveer Singh is known to get to the deep end. He recently revealed that he had stapled the sides of his stomach to ace his position in Lootera and perform convincingly. He revealed that at that time he was quite new and that he was in a dilemma because he didn’t know how to feel pain. He did what he had to do to express the pain in a credible way. The actor said, “I didn’t know at that time when I was making that choice for Lootera. You operate from a place where you are not comfortable with your craft, a place of insecurity and nervousness and you tend to do a lot more to achieve a certain effect… sometimes to the degree of harming yourself. I wouldn’t do it now as I know that there is a more efficient way of doing it. Back then, I am thinking to myself: ‘I have never been shot, now I am going to get shot. So how am I going to depict a real sort of pain on screen?” He broke his shoulder while shooting for Bajirao Mastani’s fight sequences and he got emotionally involved with the character for Alauddin Khilji’s role. So much so, that to get into Khilji’s skin he separated himself and remained locked inside his apartment.
Movie: Haathi Mere Saath (Yet to be released)

The upcoming trilingual of Rana Daggubati, Haathi Mere Saathi, is all set to go with shoots scheduled in Thailand and India on the floors. The actor will spend a fortnight training for his part with his co-stars— the elephants. Rana says, “Yes, I’ll need to do more for this film. I’ll be taking 15-20 days before the shoot to stay with the elephants in the jungle and get familiar with them before I start filming. At the same time, we are also doing a bunch of workshops because the story is inspired by two events, so we are trying to get as authentic as we can in the filming process,”
Movie: The Dark Night (2008)

Without the iconic name of Joker aka Heath on it, this list would be incomplete. For ledger, playing Batman’s arch-nemesis was not an easy feat. The actor locked himself away in a London hotel room for a month for this Christopher Nolan film, keeping a diary and experimenting with different voices and mannerisms before he came up with the character’s final vision. Obviously, the result was one of the most memorable villains ever, making him win Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2009 as well. Tragically, as he passed away from an accidental prescription drug overdose a year before publication, he never saw his work on the silver screen. It was this role that drove him to his end, according to many claims.
Movie: The Revenant (2015)

The movie that broke the long dry spell of Leo and finally made him win the Oscar for Best Actor wasn’t the actor’s bed of roses. Unlike his character in the movie, DiCaprio slept in animal carcasses, ate raw animal organs, and in real life suffered severe hypothermic bouts! Okay, we can only say it was certainly a well-deserved win.
Movie: Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016)

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is one actor, beginning from ground level to present, who made a place for himself in Bollywood on the basis of pure talent. In the conventional sense, he might not be a commercial star, but he has the talent to act that not many can match, forget to compete. He’s someone who doesn’t think twice before taking on challenging positions. He was deeply disturbed by his portrayal as the brutal serial killer in Raman Raghav 2.0. He said, “Somewhere I could not tell what is right and what is wrong. Those lines in my life got blurred. Then what happens is that film gets completed but it stills remains alive in your life as it is said that ‘if you take something from the character then it also takes a lot of things out of your life.”