10 Movies That Forced Actors To Face Their Fears

The life of an A-list actor might seem all glitz and glamour, but it also has its downsides.

Night shoots, 3am starts, 12-hour days, bad weather, unruly animal co-stars (and even uncooperative human ones) are just some of the things the cast and crew of a big movie will have to deal with on a regular basis. Not to mention the pressure of delivering a film that has a very real risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars for the studio, as well as being mocked by fans around the globe.

Sometimes, the production of a movie will also require actors to do something they might not be comfortable with, whether that's learning an incredibly difficult skill, or even facing a deep-seated fear.

From heights to horses to a particularly unbearable superhero costume, our big screen heroes might seem all cool and infallible, but they're still mere mortals, just like the rest of us. This means that they also get scared from time to time, and, on occasion, they're even forced to confront those fears in order to get the job done.

There are many reasons why Ryan Reynolds probably regrets doing Green Lantern, his misguided 2011 blockbuster based on the iconic DC hero.

The film was trounced by critics and it also bombed at the box-office, and has become such a laughing stock in the years since that Deadpool 2 even saw Reynolds joke about killing himself before he could sign on for the project.

Green Lantern wasn't a total waste of time though. Not only did Reynolds meet his future wife Blake Lively while shooting the film, but the experience of starring in a superhero epic also allowed the sharp-tongued Canadian to overcome one of his biggest fears: flying.

As Reynolds explained on the Today Show while promoting the film:

"I'm a little afraid to fly... I've always had problems with aeroplanes. In the film, I'm up on high wires all the time... we were flying all over the place, sometimes it's 60 feet per second... it was really interesting, and really terrifying at first."

Having a fear of flying, and yet signing up for a film where your character is a pilot who later gains the power of flight? That's a boss move right there.