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Tom Cruise - He is known for doing many of his own stunts, but he took it to another level when he filmed ‘Mission: Impossible-Fallout’ (2018). The adrenaline junkie learned how to skydive without a safety harness!

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Tom Cruise - What's more, for the 'Mission Impossible' franchise, Cruise spent a magnificent 2,000 hours learning to become a pro helicopter pilot. He is definitely not afraid of heights!

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Kate Winslet -

Kate Winslet features in 'Avatar: The Way of Water' as a water person, and in order to play the role properly, she learned to hold her breath for over seven minutes!

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Chadwick Boseman (1976-2020) - The late Chadwick Boseman learned the trumpet completely from scratch for his lead role as Levee Green in the film ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ (2020).

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Daniel Day-Lewis - The brilliant method actor had to learn a unique skill for his character as Christy Brown in ‘My Left Foot’ (1989). In the film, his character has cerebral palsy, and so Day-Lewis had to learn how to use a wheelchair and put a record on a turntable with his foot. Day-Lewis ended up winning the Oscar for Best Oscar for the role.

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Daniel Day-Lewis -

Daniel Day-Lewis did it again in ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ (1992). In order to nail his role, he learned how to hunt, track, and skin animals for food.

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Timothée Chalamet - Chalamet endured some pretty intense lessons before he played the character of Elio in 'Call Me by Your Name' (2017). Before the film, he quickly picked up the guitar like a pro. If this wasn’t enough, by practicing for four hours a day, he also became fluent in Italian! He also was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor.

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Ryan Gosling -

The hunky Ryan Gosling had to learn how to build furniture for his character, Noah, in ‘The Notebook’ (2004). This way he could build his true love a wonderful house!

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Adrien Brody - In ‘The Pianist’ (2002), as the name suggests, Brody had to be a virtuoso. However, he had no idea how to play. But he swiftly mastered the piano and won himself an Academy Award for Best Actor.

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Danai Gurira - For the series ‘The Walking Dead,’ Gurira had to learn how to wield a sword in order to fight zombies on screen. She completed a month of intensive training to become an excellent swordswoman.

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Margot Robbie - The wonderful actress had to learn ice skating every day for her role as Tonya Harding in the film ‘I, Tonya’ (2017). It took sweat and lots of bruises for her to put on her fantastic performance. As a result, she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress.

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Margot Robbie - Yet again, Robbie shows she is a woman of many talents. As Harley Quinn in ‘S u i c i d e  Squad’ (2016), she had to learn how to hold her breath underwater for five minutes! She managed it by practicing free-diving with an instructor.

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Natalie Portman - Although Portman danced a little in her youth, it didn’t prepare her for the role of Nina Sayers in ‘Black Swan’ (2010). The actress trained for eight hours a day and sustained multiple injuries to reach the required ballet standard for the film. She deservedly won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

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Bryan Cranston - Ever wonder why, when Cranston is cooking up his meth in ‘Breaking Bad,’ it looks so realistic? It’s because the DEA actually taught him how to make crystal meth in preparation for his Emmy-winning role as Walter White.

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Jamie Foxx -

Perhaps it cannot be considered as a skill, but Jamie Foxx did have to train to become Ray Charles in ‘Ray’ (2004). As Ray Charles was blind, Foxx agreed to have prosthetic eyelids glued over his eyes for 14 days in order to do the role justice. He won an Oscar for Best Actor for his efforts.

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Shia LaBeouf - LaBoeuf took his skill set to another level when he prepared to play the character Boyd Swan in the film ‘Fury’ (2014). He joined the U.S. National Guard to learn how to become a proper soldier so as to do his role justice.

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Jennifer Lawrence - Compared to her role in ‘The Hunger Games’ (2012), Lawrence’s role in ‘Winter’s Bone’ (2012) is relatively unknown. For the character of Ree Dolly, for which she was nominated for an Oscar, the actress had to learn how to rough it out in the wild. She can now confidently chop wood, and skin squirrels...

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Jesse Eisenberg - Although he seems like the type that would already know how to do magic tricks, Eisenberg wasn't qualified enough for his role in ‘Now You See Me’ (2013). He had to learn all manner of magic tricks to make a success of his performance.

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Leonardo DiCaprio - Of all the weird things DiCaprio had to say and do in ‘The Revenant’ (2015), perhaps the most outstanding is that he actually learned another language. Not just any language, but the Arikara Indigenous language. No wonder he finally won his Oscar!

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Gordon-Levitt took on an ambitious role playing Philippe Petit in the film ‘The Walk’ (2015). The character was a tightrope walker who walked between the Twin Towers. Accordingly, the actor also picked up the terrifying sport.

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Robert Downey Jr. - Even though he is right-handed, in order to play Charlie Chaplin in ‘Chaplin’ (1992), Downey Jr. learned to play the violin left-handed. It is already a very tricky instrument, not least with the weaker hand and arm! For his efforts, he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor.

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Rooney Mara - Although she did not have to, in order to better understand her character Lisbeth Salander in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ (2011), Mara learned how to hack computers. She was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress for her efforts.

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Channing Tatum - You may have seen him strut his stuff in ‘Step Up’ (2006) and ‘Magic Mike’ (2012), but his moves are very different in ‘Hail, Caesar!’ (2016). Even though his appearance is only for six minutes, Tatum spent three months practicing tap dance to smash the role.

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Eddie Redmayne - For his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in ‘The Theory of Everything’ (2014), Redmayne had to learn how to speak and walk like someone who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Redmayne won an Oscar for Best Actor as a reward for his incredible performance.

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Uma Thurman - As the ferocious Bride in Volume I and II of the ‘Kill Bill’ series, Thurman had to pick up a whole variety of combat skills. She trained in the arts of kung-fu, hand-to-hand combat, katara fighting, knife throwing, and sword fighting. Not to mention she also picked up Japanese. Incredible!

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Sigourney Weaver -

In the film 'Gorillas in the Mist’ (1988), Weaver actually had to learn how to communicate with gorillas. She spent a long time adopting different body language in order to make them feel comfortable around her. She was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for her efforts.

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Russell Crowe - For the film ‘Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World’ (2003), Crowe learned how to sail a very tall, 19th-century ship.

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Jon Favreau - Maybe the only way Favreau makes our mouths water so much in the film ‘Chef’ (2014) is because he actually learned how to professionally cook for the role. He's so good that he got his own cooking series called ‘The Chef Show’ on Netflix.

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Keanu Reeves - Keanu Reeves is known for doing his own stunts all the time. In the film ‘Point Break’ (1991) it was not fighting he had to learn, but surfing. He had never done it before but became a real pro along with Patrick Swayze.

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‘A Quiet Place’ (2018) -

Millicent Simmonds, who plays Regan Abbott in the film, is deaf in real life as well as in the film. The whole cast learned American sign language for the film because it is mostly set in silence.

Sources: (The Things)(BuzzFeed)

See also: Actors who years later revealed they had crushes on their co-stars

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