"What is an example of an actor who has become so engulfed by the character that he has become a detriment to himself in real life?
This is Martin Sheen at 36.
A handsome man, right? Early in his career, many remembered James Dean.
This is Martin Sheen at 36 in one of the opening scenes of Apocalypse Now, as Captain Benjamin L. Willard.
Do you see the blood? It's true. And the anguished expression on his face? That is also true. In the scene, Captain Willard was soaking drunk, alone in a hotel room in Saigon, defeated by his own demons after spending several years in action in Vietnam. Martin Sheen was so immersed in Captain Willard's shoes that he got soaking drunk, punched a mirror, broke it and got a deep cut on his thumb.
The director, Frances Ford Coppola, ordered the cameraman to continue filming while actor Martin Sheen drunk faced his own demons. The anguish you see is so real that Sheen avoided going to see the film for several months after its release and did so in the end only at the insistence of a close friend who wanted to see it. She avoided going to see him because she was afraid to witness that scene - which she said she had forgotten. He then admitted that he remembered it well but had done his best to forget it.
Captain Willard was tasked with going up a river in Vietnam and assassinating a colonel (Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando) who had driven mad people by the follies of war, and who had proclaimed himself lord of a bloodthirsty colony of savage Vietnamese nationalists.
The film - shot in the Philippines, since the real Vietnam War was still ongoing - follows Willard and a small team on a PBR (Patrol Boat, River) on their journey down the river, to Kurtz's camp.
(The entrance to the camp by the river)
Sheen - an athlete in excellent physical condition - wrote that he was concerned from the beginning about the intense physical exertion that the script required - in a tropical climate with intense humidity like that of the Philippines.
Despite his physical condition, Sheen suffered a heart attack halfway through filming. He was rushed to Manila and spent six weeks recovering before he could return to the set.
I'm not going to spoil this classic movie by revealing the ending. But it's a study of human darkness, and according to many Vietnam veterans, it did an excellent job of portraying the madness of the Vietnam War.
Sheen took several weeks in Hawaii to strip off this role and return to the "real world" before returning to California.
If you haven't seen it, you should. It's a beautiful film with incredible performances by Sheen, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper, as well as a 14-year-old Laurence Fishburne. (A little less that of Brando, in my opinion).
Extra bonus: To get permission to shoot in the Philippines, Frances Ford Coppola agreed to destroy all their sets. Destruction has become the end credits of Apocalypse Now, where they film the destruction of Kurtz's camp. Remember that there were no CGI special effects in the seventies - they are real shots from 12 different camera angles. The cameramen had to crouch down to avoid being hit by burning pieces of set flying around."
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I found this on Quora on a 'Stranger Things' thread and hope the accreditation is correct . . . if you know otherwise please get in touch and let me know
https://www.quora.com/profile/Anna-Maria-1645
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