Movies that permanently damaged actors' bodies
Matt Damon in Courage Under Fire (1997)
Maybe he felt like he needed to prove himself, but early in his career, Matt Damon lost weight to play a small role in Ed Zwick's 1996 war drama Courage Under Fire—and his body has come to regret it. For only two days of filming as a soldier in the throes of addiction, Damon lost 40 pounds in just a little over three months, which caused lasting effects with his blood sugar. "I felt he should be a shell of a man at the end of the story," he told Movieline in 1997. "Not just because of the drugs he's been taking, but because the guilt he feels has been eating away at him. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I ran six miles in the morning and six miles at night, and I'd drink four to six pots of coffee to be able to run that distance. When I went into a restaurant, the first thing I would tell the waiters was, 'I'm your worst nightmare." I wouldn't waver from my diet. It got so bad that when my girlfriend kissed me, I'd have to wash my mouth out because I could taste the oils on her lips from the food she'd eaten."
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