The actor Christian Bale lost an extraordinary amount of weight that veered on being dangerous for his health for his role in The Machinist. Ultimately, the starving did not pay off as the film was a box office flop.

Stallone insisted on giving out and taking real hits while filming Rocky. The result was a broken rib and heart damage while filming Rocky IV.

To play a Fedex employee who becomes stranded on a desert island for four years, Tom Hanks lost 55 lbs spent weeks up to his neck in water and caught a nasty infection, which almost led to blood poisoning. It required surgery. Though in this case, the hard work paid off as Hanks received an Academy Award nomination and won a Golden Globe for the part.

For one of his more serious roles, Jim Carrey the funny man stayed in character throughout filming, alienating friends and family for his portrayal of Andy Kaufman in The Man on the Moon. The movie, however, did not do as well in ticket sales as hoped.

Did you know the entire time Joaquin Phoenix was making rounds on talk shows with his overgrown beard and proclamation of quitting acting to become a rapper, it was all for a movie role? Yeah, we didn't see Im Still Here we bet no one else did either, but what a really strange way to get into character.

When he took on the role of Max Cady in Cape Fear, Robert DeNiro was so dedicated to his characters appearance that he actually paid a dentist 20,000 to destroy his teeth to look as if he spent years in jail. DeNiros yuck-mouth seems to have paid off, as received Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for the role, which is still lauded today as one of the best characters on film.

To become The Joker in the film The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger locked himself up in a hotel room for a month to perfect the villains sinister laugh. He also reportedly kept a notebook filled with crazy writings that he called the Jokers personal diary. The erratic behavior paid offalbeit tragicallywhen he posthumously received a number of awards for the role, including a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

The Queens rapper 50 cent lost up to 54 pounds in All Things Falls Apart to play a football player who gets diagnosed with cancer. Pictures of the emaciated singer prompted most of the world to exclaim He better win an Oscar! The result? Do you know ten people that actually saw the film?

Natalie Portman dropped 20 pounds and trained for a full year before portraying a ballerina in Black Swan.

For her film debut in Spike Lees Jungle Fever Halle Berry opted not to bathe for two weeks to get into character.

For the 1999 film Music of the Heart Meryl Streep learned to play the violin for her role by practicing six hours a day, everyday, for a month!

In her Academy Award winning performance for The Reader, Kate Winslet was so focused on depicting the part accurately that it took her months to return back to reality.

To prep for his Oscar winning role as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, Nicholas Cage would film himself while drunk so he could replicate the performance for the movie.

To get their super smooth beefy man-chests in the poor mans movie version of Chippendales, both Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey underwent some serious waxing time at the salon. At least they know the pain we felt after sitting through two painful hours of Magic Mike.