On-Set Horror Shelley Duvall Had to Endure on Kubrick's Shining Almost Made Her Quit Acting

There's hardly anyone in the world who hasn't at least heard of Stanley Kubrick's famous movie, The Shining. Filmed more than 40 years ago, the movie is still a favorite for many people around the world.

But in truth, there are some stunning details about how Kubrick created a movie with such a genuine thriller atmosphere that most audiences are definitely not aware of.

Many years after the film's release, a lot of details about the making of The Shining have been revealed. The main thing that made us shiver was to learn about the horrible working conditions for all the cast and crew of the movie.

But as it seems, none of that could even compare to the shock and horror that actress Shelley Duvall experienced during the filming process.

It was said that Kubrick's treatment of her on the set almost made her give up acting. So you can imagine how bad it must have been.

Kubrick was really cruel to the actress, often withholding details of upcoming scenes in order to film her natural reaction.

For example, he made her and her co-star Jack Nicholson reshoot the baseball bat confrontation scene on the stairs 127 times in a row.

As a result of the continuous shots, Duvall's hands were damaged from holding the bat for so long, her voice was squeaky from crying, her eyes were swollen, and she left the set completely dehydrated.

But that's not all. Kubrick was constantly mentally harassing her, being absolutely mean to her almost every time she was on the set.

He wanted her not to act, but to actually react to the traumas she experienced on the set. The director even asked her co-stars to be rude to her to achieve the same goal.

So you can imagine that every time we saw Duvall in the movie in pain, or crying, or just about to die of exhaustion, it was real, and no one was there to help her.

The rest of the cast was actually forbidden to praise her, to compliment her work, to say anything good to her. And all this was for the sake of having a "natural" response in the movie.

Well, frankly, it's no wonder that all of this caused so many future psychological problems for Duvall. She began to have anxiety attacks even on the set, but no one cared.

For over a year, because the movie was 500 days in the making, she was in constant pain without even knowing what exactly was going on.

Certainly, nothing in the world is worth an attitude like that towards the people you work with. And it doesn't matter how highly praised you are as a director.

No actor should be pushed to the point of having an anxiety attack on set.