7 Actors Who Got Permanently Damaged Because of Their Roles

Acting often requires actors to go to great lengths to portray their characters accurately and to go through some pretty intense things in their name.

Sometimes this means taking on physically demanding roles that can cause permanent damage to the body.

If there was an award for "this role permanently altered my body," these 7 actors would definitely take it home.

7. Angelina Jolie — Salt (2010)

Angelina Jolie's role as CIA officer Evelyn Salt in the 2010 action movie required her character to do a lot of stunts, and during one of them, she got a permanent scar on her face.

There are a lot of action scenes in the movie where Salt jumps off buildings and fights the bad guys, and during one shootout, Angelina suddenly ran into a door and got hurt.

6. Jared Leto — Chapter 27 (2007)

To portray mentally disturbed Mark Chapman, the killer of former Beatles member John Lennon, Jared Leto gained 30 kilos and ended up in a wheelchair.

His body was so traumatized by the extra weight that his legs couldn't even bring him to the set. It took Jared a year after filming to get back to a normal life.

5. Daniel Day-Lewis — My Left Foot (1989)

Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his portrayal of Christy Brown, an Irishman with cerebral palsy, but he literally suffered to get the award.

The actor remained in character throughout the filming process, which required him to stay in a wheelchair and use only his left foot.

He refused to leave his chair during filming and asked people to spoon-feed him during breaks. This caused long-term damage to his spine and two broken ribs.

4. Michelle Yeoh — Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

The mishap landing after a front kick, which Michelle said she had done more than a thousand times, turned out to be a permanent injury.

The stunt completely tore the anterior cruciate ligament in the actress' knee and led her to months of physical therapy, but even after that, Michelle admitted to never fully recovering.

3. Christian Bale — The Machinist (2004)

Christian Bale is known for playing tricks with his weight for roles. For The Machinist, he lost 54 kilos to play the emaciated Trevor Reznik and in the same year, he gained back 45 kilos to play Batman.

Such extreme weight loss and gain in a short period of time caused permanent damage to his metabolism, and he has since stated that he will never do anything like that to his body again.

2. Margaret Hamilton — The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, suffered second-degree burns on her face and third-degree burns on her hands during the filming of the infamous The Wizard of Oz.

The flames, which were supposed to appear after the Witch's disappearance, burned her while she was still in the shot and sent her to the hospital for 6 weeks.

1. Jackie Chan — All Of His Movies

The actor was injured so many times during the filming process that it's impossible to count.

Jackie has broken fingers, toes, noses, hips, dislocated his arms, shoulders, knees, had several concussions and back injuries, but even above all these damages he highlighted the specific one that changed his life.

On the set of "Armour of God II," he severely injured his head and ended up on the operating table. He had a surgeon on his brain and now there is a metal plate in his head.

The king of stunts, and the winner of our list.