50 Facts About Hollywood Actors and Actresses

We pulled these spicy tidbits about the leading men and women of the silver screen.

From on (and off) set feuds, to tragic deaths, to dark secrets between co-stars, these celebrities have done it all.

1. Robert De Niro

One of Robert De Niro’s notable performances is as Max Cady in Cape Fear (1991). To play the role as authentically as possible, Robert De Niro paid his dentist $5,000 to make his teeth appear as badly as possibly. Once the movie was complete, he paid another $20,000 to have his teeth restored.

2. Julia Roberts

Brother and sister, Eric and Julia Roberts are both movie stars, albeit with very different career trajectories. They first became estranged when Eric, struggling with chemical dependencies, gained an unsavory reputation for domestic violence.

Julia understandably sided with Eric’s partner in the custody battle for their daughter Emma (yes, the Emma Roberts who is also an actress), which Eric took serious issue with.

Things got so bad between them that Julia allegedly refused to have her brother’s name even mentioned around her. They did eventually reconcile, though.

3. Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp was good friends with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson until his death. Depp helped to fulfill Thompson’s last wish after the writer died: Thompson wanted his remains to be shot out of a 150 foot long cannon. Depp funded the ceremony and cannon firing, while celebrities such as Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn attended.

4. Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet says she is still disturbed and “haunted” by her nude scene in Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio, only recently revealing that fans still go after her with images of the drawing of her body and ask her to sign it.

She always refuses.

5. George Clooney

Did you know that George Clooney suffered some life-threatening injuries during his shoot for Syriana? He cracked his head open and sustained major damage to his spinal membrane, causing spinal fluid to leak into his brain.

Massive headaches and terrible back pain had to be treated over a course of months to get his body back to normal. It took doctors weeks to figure out what was wrong with him. Relief only came after his actress friend, Lisa Kudrow, referred him onto her neurologist brother, who noticed the fluid leaking from Clooney’s spine.

We’re sure glad recovering and continued making legendary movies.

6. Jennifer Aniston

In 2002, paparazzi used a long-lens camera from an eight story building to capture pictures of Jennifer Aniston sunbathing topless in her own backyard. The photos ended up in multiple magazines, and Aniston again went to court over the issue with both the photographer and magazines.

In 2003, the photographer paid Aniston $550,000 in damages.

7. Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio is amongst one of the many celebrities who have signed up with Virgin Galactic for a trip to space. In 2013, a Russian millionaire paid $1.5 million for the chance to go with him.

Hopefully, this maiden voyage turns out better than the last one he took.

8. Joan Crawford

Before she became one of the top leading ladies of her time, Joan Crawford allegedly performed in at least one dirty film (and on top of that, she may also have been underage at the time). We’ll never know the truth of this matter, because every copy of the film was allegedly hunted down by Crawford’s later employer, MGM Studios.

When Crawford parted ways with MGM in 1943, she paid them $50,000, an odd gesture in itself… unless one assumes it was a repayment for making her embarrassing (and damaging) film debut go away.

9. Steve Harvey

On an episode of Little Big Shots that featured Steve Harvey in the ring with an eight-year-old, Steve got punched in the face.

“Too low!” Harvey blurted out in the midst of her flying punches. She swung for his face, causing him to stick his head out of the ring for a breather. “Caught me in the lips!” he said. “They too big. I couldn’t get them out the way.”

10. Minnie Driver

Minnie Driver dated her Good Will Hunting co-star Matt Damon for a year, but the relationship ended when Damon denied having a girlfriend on the Oprah Winfrey Show. What happened to the chivalry of sending a text?

11. Morgan Freeman

A man of honor and loyalty, Morgan Freeman was put in jail while serving in the Air Force because he insisted on sticking with his friend.

He was asked, “Have you ever been in jail?" He said, "I have. I was a kid. I was in the Air Force and I’d gone with a friend of mine to Los Angeles. When we left the base, he left his Class-A pass sitting on the table. We were hitchhiking because he was out of money. I had a little money, but I didn’t want to take the bus and leave him. The police stopped us on the freeway. He asked both of us for ID and I had mine and my friend didn’t have his."

The cop said, "Well, we’re gonna have to call the shore patrol because we don’t know if you’re AWOL."

He told me, "You got money–you take a bus.’"

I said, "I’m with him. So I went to jail for four days.”

12. Halle Berry

Halle Berry went to some sketchy places to prepare for her role in Jungle Fever. She lived in a dusty hovel and also didn’t bathe for two weeks.

13. Gene Hackman

Many actors are flattered when a screenwriter develops a part with them specifically in mind. Gene Hackman? Not so much.

Wes Anderson wrote the role of patriarch Royal Tenenbaum with Hackman in mind, but the actor was unresponsive to the director’s attempts to cast in for the film, saying there wasn’t enough money to tempt him.

Anderson eventually wore him down, but at what cost? Hackman, determined to cause trouble, yelled at everyone who messed up and even called Anderson a [bleep] in front of the entire cast and crew.

By the end of the shoot, the only cast member who wasn’t deathly afraid of Hackman was Bill Murray, who would sometimes watch over filming while wearing a tough-guy cowboy hat in order to make Hackman stay in line.

14. Meryl Streep

Woody Allen and Meryl Streep have worked together precisely once: on the movie Manhattan.

Streep often likes to tweak or add her ideas to scripts and Allen was very strict about sticking to the existing writing. Word is that Streep wasn’t too happy about this.

15. Sean Connery

After Sean Connery ended his reign as James Bond, casting directors took a chance on an unknown model from Australia named George Lazenby. Lazenby proceeded to get into the part by embarking on an international exploration of what it meant to be an uber-male super-spy—ie. boozing, clubbing, and bedding multiple women a day.

Back on set he did some questionable things that generally alarmed the crew. Eventually, Lazenby burnt out and abandoned the role of Bond after one film (it didn’t help that critics panned his performance).

16. Angelina Jolie

It seems like eons ago that Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton were still together. And wearing necklaces of each other’s blood.

According to Thornton, it was Jolie’s idea that “it would be interesting and romantic if we took a little razor blade and sliced our fingers, smeared a little blood on these lockets and you wear it around your neck just like you wear your son or daughter’s baby hair in one.”

In terms of romantic gestures, we’d have gone with the hair thing; more Victorian, much less painful, and way more hygienic.

17. Matt Damon

The movie that launched Damon’s career was also the movie that almost killed him.

He was so dedicated to his character, his breakout role in the movie Courage Under Fire, that he intentionally lost 40 pounds for the role. He had to take medication for a year and a half to correct the stress he had put on his adrenal gland.

Despite that, Damon considered it a great career move.

18. Judy Garland

You’ll never watch The Wizard of Oz the same way again after you find out just how tortured Judy Garland’s life was thanks to her Hollywood career.

When she was set to star as Dorothy in the aforementioned film, she was 15, and already the studio was pushing her to lose as much weight as possible. Garland suffered mentally from the producers’ bullying, and then physically, when she became addicted to diet pills.

While this wasn’t exactly a full-blown scandal back in the day, it was considered extreme even for the time.

The crew who worked on The Wizard of Oz reflected that they’d never seen such cruelty towards a youth before. Shame that they couldn’t have stepped in and tried to help things, though.

19. Christian Bale

In the middle of filming a scene for Terminator Salvation, the director of photography, Shane Hurlbut, happened to wander near Christian Bale twice, sparking a huge argument.

Audio of the incident was leaked, allowing the public to hear Bale screaming at Hurlbut for being distracting, swearing 39 times, calling him an “amateur” and demanding that he be kicked off the set.

At one point Bale threatens him and has to be talked down from assaulting Hurlbut.

20. Reese Witherspoon

A 2013 viral tape showed Reese Witherspoon screaming at a police officer while being arrested for disorderly conduct.

Most don’t know that she also shamefully confessed to bold-faced lying to the officer during the incident, as she said, “I saw [the cop] arresting my husband and I literally panicked. I said all kinds of crazy things. I told him I was pregnant. I’m not pregnant! I said crazy things.”

21. Liam Neeson

Neeson’s wife, Natasha Richardson, died after a tragic skiing accident at the Mont Tremblant Resort, northwest of Montreal.

He has since spoken of the heartbreaking moment when he had to switch off Richardson’s life-support machine, softly telling her, “Sweetie, you’re not coming back from this.”

22. Janyne Mansfield

In 1967, Jayne Mansfield got into a car with her attorney, her driver, and three of her children.

It would be the last car ride of her life, as just before 2:30 a.m., the car crashed into the rear of a tractor-trailer, having failed to notice the trailer slowing down.

The three adults, including Mansfield, were instantly killed, while the sleeping children in the rear of the car suffered only minor injuries.

One of those sleeping children was her three-year-old daughter, Mariska Hargitay, who most people know as Det. Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU.

23. Bradley Cooper

When asked why he and frequent co-star Jennifer Lawrence never got involved romantically, Cooper said that the actress was “too young,” which would have been more believable had he not been dating a 23-year-old at the time.

24. Elizabeth Taylor

After a brief marriage to English actor Michael Wilding, Elizabeth Taylor married film and theater producer Mike Todd.

Todd loved spectacles: for Elizabeth’s birthday, he rented Madison Square Garden, invited 18,000 party guests, and arranged to have the whole thing broadcast on CBS.

Todd died in a plane crash in 1958; it was Taylor’s only marriage not to end in divorce.

25. Adam Sandler

In a bizarre case that started in 2010, Adam Sandler’s former nanny alleged that while she was working at his and his wife’s home and caring for their children, her work environment and financial compensation amounted to slavery.

It sounds absurd, but it’s a common claim that personal assistants and live-in nannies make about celebrities.

Adam Sandler decided to pay $48,000 to the nanny to make the matter go away. He also paid $32,000 to her attorneys.

In exchange, she agreed the matter was resolved and signed a confidentiality agreement.

In 2014, she changed her mind and tried to sue HP Production. An arbitrator quickly ruled she violated the confidentiality agreement, and she had to pay back the $80,000 she was paid to keep quiet.

26. Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall’s trademark facial gesture, known as “The Look,” was actually borne out of nerves on the set of her first film, To Have and Have Not. She kept her chin pressed against her chest to keep from shaking until just before the cameras rolled, which is why she began every shot by bringing her gaze upward.

27. Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne Johnson accidentally knocked out co-star Michael Clarke Duncan while filming of The Scorpion King (2002).

Duncan and Dwayne were filming a fight scene and Duncan leaned in a bit too far, and The Rock’s elbow connected right on his chin.

Duncan apparently went down like a sack of bricks and was completely out.

28. Anne Hathaway

In 2014, while on the beach in Oahu, Hawaii, Anne Hathaway got swept up in a riptide.

She started to scream and wave her arms, but her boyfriend wasn’t close enough to hear her.

Thankfully, some local surfers saw her in distress and were able to save her with a boogie board, but she cut her toe on some coral on the way in and when she finally made it to shore, was bleeding profusely.

29. Anthony Hopkins

During the filming of The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster was so scared of Anthony Hopkins that she avoided him as much as possible, and didn’t speak to him until the last day of shooting.

When they did finally speak, Hopkins admitted that he’d been scared of her too.

30. Renee Zellweger

After returning to the limelight following a hiatus from acting, people were quick to point out that Renee Zellweger looked a lot different, particularly her face.

People immediately began speculating that she had plastic surgery. She ended up dismissing the rumors in an essay she wrote for the Huffington Post and chalked it up to the fact that she has simply aged, like every human being does.

31. Russel Crowe

Russell Crowe was relentlessly pranked for several years in the early 2000s.

When he would stay in hotels, he would get calls from someone pretending to be the hotel manager and charging him some extra fee or making him change rooms.

Once he was annoyed the prank caller would giggle and then say, “Don’t worry Russell, it’s me, Michael.”

Michael would also call up and ask for Mr. Wall or Mrs. Wall or any walls. When Russell would respond there were no Walls there, Michael would ask, “Then what is holding the roof up?”

The calls persisted for three years and Crowe eventually figured out that the caller was actually Michael Jackson. The two had never actually met in person.

32. Kirsten Dunst

Kirsten Dunst’s breakout role was as forever young vampire Claudia in the film Interview with the Vampire, based on the book by Anne Rice.

In the film, Dunst and Brad Pitt’s characters share a tender moment together. The scene called for Dunst and Pitt to kiss each other. It made Dunst uncomfortable to say the least, having her first kiss with a man many years her senior.

“I thought it was gross, that Brad had cooties. I mean, I was 12,” she said.

33. Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck was banned from the Las Vegas Hard Rock Casino for life after he was caught “counting cards” in blackjack. Counting cards isn’t illegal, but it can get you barred from casinos.

34. Cher

A mere four days after Cher’s divorce from Sonny Bono was final, on June 30, 1975, she jumped into another tumultuous marriage.

This time with rock star Gregg Allman, frontman for the Allman Brothers Band.

However intense their feelings were for each other at the time, they couldn’t withstand Allman’s alcoholism and substance abuse. Cher reached her limit with the guitarist after only nine days of matrimony.

35. Vin Diesel

According to Hollywood Life, Paul Walker spoke his final words to Jim Torp, an engineer who had attended a Reach Out Worldwide fundraiser.

Before getting into the car, he said to Torp, “We will be back in five minutes.”

Vin Diesel felt like Paul was his brother and “other half.” Diesel honored Walker by naming his baby girl Pauline.

36. Michelle Pfeiffer

One of Michelle Pfeiffer’s earliest roles was playing the innocent and ill-treated Madame Marie de Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons.

She played opposite John Malkovich, who had the infamous role of the unprincipled Valmont. As might be expected on the set of a film about scandal, it was soon reported that the married Malkovich had begun an affair with Pfeiffer.

The affair did not last, but neither did Malkovich’s marriage.

37. Idris Elba

On the set of Beasts of No Nation, Idris Elba leaned against a tree that overlooked a waterfall.

Horrifically, the actor lost his balance and almost tumbled over the edge to a 90-foot drop.

Luckily, he happened to land onto a narrow ridge that prevented his almost certain death.

38. Sandra Bullock

In 2014, a stalker named Joshua James Corbett, broke into Sandra Bullock’s Los Angeles home.

When she realized that a stranger was in her house, she was forced to hide in a closet while calling 911. Corbett was arrested, entered a no contest plea and is now prohibited from seeing Bullock for 10 years.

Bullock never appeared in person for the trial, but her 15 minute 911 call was still valuable evidence.

Here’s part of the recording from Bullock’s 911 call: “I’m locked in my closet. I have a safe door in my bedroom and I’ve locked it… I hear them. I hear someone banging on the door.”

39. Josh Brolin

While enjoying a surf trip in Costa Rica in 2013, Josh Brolin and his girlfriend (now wife), Kathryn Boyd left their hotel to head to McDonald’s.

The McDonald’s was closed and someone approached Brolin (in the wee hours of the morning) to ask for a cigarette and money. When Brolin told the man he had neither, the man stabbed him.