Actors Who Were Under The Influence On Set

In almost any profession, if you show up to work blasted, you'll be escorted off the premises faster than you can raid the fridge in the break room, but television and movie sets aren't the normal workplace. If an actor shows up a little toasted, maybe it's to settle his or her nerves before a tough scene, or maybe they're playing someone who's high or drunk and they're going method, or maybe they're sadly and hopelessly addicted. For whatever reason, substance abuse on the set is about as commonplace as flipping out on an assistant. Here are some actors who've admitted to working in an altered state of mind.

Wait, Seth Rogen got high on a movie set? We know, stop the presses, right? In this particular instance, Rogen's smoking habit seemed so favorable, it actually converted director Kevin Smith into being a new stoner at age 38. "That dude gave me the greatest gift I've had in the last five years," Smith told MTV. "The moment I start smoking, I start working." Smith is now as outspoken about the creative benefits of herb as Rogen. Smith even appeared on a morning show in Toronto and talked about smoking weed every day. That is some powerful influence that Rogen wields.

And it's not just Smith who's succumbed to Rogen's ways. On a Jimmy Kimmel Live! (via UPI) appearance, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt admitted that while he and Rogen were on the set of The Night Before (2015), they would pass a joint around in the morning to kick-start the creative juices. But Gordon-Levitt's experience was far from the epiphany that Smith had. Gordon-Levitt told Kimmel, "I decided to start smoking at the end of the day, after the work was done," he joked, after noting his comic suggestions were only funny to him. "Smoke at the end of the day, kids...then enjoy your weed."

The moral of the story here is that working with Rogen is awesome unless you hate laughing until you cry and enjoying what is probably the most amazing craft services offering in the industry. If that's the case, then he's probably not for you.

Given his legendary drug abuse and untimely death, John Belushi being high on set is about as shocking as snow at the North Pole, but most people probably didn't think his frequent collaborator and buddy, Dan Aykroyd was also getting in on the action. In a 2012 Vanity Fair exploration of the making of The Blues Brothers (1980), Aykroyd admitted he did cocaine on the set. "Everyone did it, including me. Never to excess, and not ever to where I wanted to buy it or have it."

Not only that, but in a strangely casual admission that will later be echoed here by Dennis Quaid, Aykroyd claims the film actually had cocaine in the budget "for night shoots." Apparently, Trenta lattes weren't all the rage yet in 1980, but seriously, isn't it kind of crazy to know that movie sets were basically like Scarface's mansion back then? It makes sense, though, if you really think about it. After all, Flash Gordon also came out in 1980, and there's no way that entire film wasn't someone's cocaine-fueled fantasy.

Nicolas Cage's performance in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) is nothing short of a manic tour de force. Roger Ebert described the film as "a dire portrait of a rapist, murderer, drug addict, corrupt cop and degenerate paranoid who's very apprehensive about iguanas." Ebert also rightfully suggests this kind of role is practically tailor-made for an actor like Cage. He's weird enough and crazy enough to be that guy and still somehow have audiences rooting for him. While his talents are certainly what propelled the film into delightful insanity, Cage also received an inadvertent boost thanks to a sinus infection that got treated with cocaine, which is apparently something they still do in Australia.

Yep, in an interview with Time Out London, Cage explained that he he hadn't done drugs in a long time, so when he was given a saline solution with "a tiny percentage of cocaine" in it, he used the experience as preparation for the role. "So I took it as an opportunity to go back to my room, start writing notes and see if I could recall anything that would help me. And I did notice that if I opened myself to it, I recalled certain sensations, behaviourisms, swallowing, dry mouth, feelings of invincibility and sexuality and all that stuff. I made notes and then I started rehearsing the scenes." That has to be the most responsible use of cocaine in the history of cocaine. Way to go and make this whole incident seem boring, Nic.

In an extremely candid 2011 Newsweek interview, Dennis Quaid admits he was so messed up on coke while shooting The Big Easy (1986) that it affected his performance. "I was getting an hour of sleep a night. I had a reputation for being a 'bad boy,' which seemed like a good thing, but basically I just had my head stuck up my a**. I'd wake up, snort a line, and swear I wasn't going to do it again that day. But then 4 o'clock rolled around, and I'd be right back down the same road like a little squirrel on one of those treadmills." Perhaps even more shocking was Quaid's casual revelation that throughout his early career, cocaine was just around, and even budgeted into films as "petty cash," so that actors could indulge on set.

It's no surprise Quaid's habit turned into a serious addiction, which landed him in rehab in 1988 at a time when he was one of the hottest actors in Hollywood. Ironically, it would take him until 1998 to land a surprise hit with The Parent Trap, starring none other than Lindsay Lohan in the star-making role(s) that would eventually lead to her own downfall due to drug and alcohol abuse. It's like that "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game, only sadder, because the connection isn't a beloved star of Footloose (1984), it's drugs.

The production of Apocalypse Now (1979), Francis Ford Coppola's dark exploration of the Vietnam War, is something of its own legend. So much so, that the making of the film became the subject of the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), which captured a behind-the-scenes look at the now infamous opening sequence in which a genuinely intoxicated Martin Sheen has a full-blown breakdown in a hotel room. Sheen basically improvises the entire thing, including the real drinking, which led to him accidentally smashing a vanity mirror and slicing open his thumb.

Sheen admitted to The Guardian, "At the time, I was a drinker. Hell, I was an alcoholic. It was my 36th birthday and I'd been drinking all day." The scene was very real and very disturbing for everyone on set, especially Sheen, who would suffer a heart attack and nearly die later on in the production. Sheen credits his experience on the film as an eye-opening one in which he re-examined the choices that he was making that brought him so close to death at the age of 36. Despite what is clearly a dogged if not reckless dedication to a role, he didn't even get nominated for an Oscar. Dustin Hoffman won best actor for Kramer vs. Kramer that year, and as far as we know, he didn't even come close to losing his mind on set. Way to drop the ball, Academy.

In many of director Kevin Smith's movies, he appears in character as Silent Bob, a trench coat-wearing stoner who speaks only when doling out rare bits of sage wisdom. By Bob's side at all times is Jay, the foul-mouthed loon who does enough talking for both of them. Jay is played by Jason Mewes, Smith's real life BFF, who also in real life seems nearly identical to his outrageous on-screen persona. Unfortunately, that means Mewes has grappled with drug and alcohol abuse for years, which Smith opened up about in 2003 during his live show, An Evening with Kevin Smith. When asked if there would be more Jay and Silent Bob movies, he replied, "Honestly, [Mewes'] drug problems are the reason we're not going to do them again. Last time I saw him, I told him if he could stay clean for a year we'd do another one. Sadly, I don't think that's going to happen. Even on Dogma he was drunk all the time, and he's not a happy drunk."

Now sober for years, Mewes himself even cops to what a mess he was in the early days of his acting career. In an interview with Metro, he shed light on his intoxication on the set of Clerks (1994), which was both he and Smith's first film. "I was either drinking or smoking the whole time," Mewes said. "They had to send me home sometimes. I was drinking blackberry brandy—I passed out on the floor. I was so drunk I was slurring during a scene with Randal so they had to send me home." Something tells us that wouldn't have gone over so well for anyone other than the director's best friend. Lucky for Mewes, Smith is a forgiving guy, and the two continued working together for the next two decades.

Given his notable marijuana advocacy through the years, it would be logical to think that Woody Harrelson likes to toke up before heading to set. This is a guy who's been on the cover of High Times more than once, and who even applied (unsuccessfully) for a license to open Hawaii's first medical marijuana dispensary. But despite his outspoken love of Mary Jane, Harrelson has never copped to being high on set. In fact, he doesn't even really like to talk about weed much anymore.

However, during promotion for The Hunger Games movie franchise (2012-2015), Harrelson told MTV about one time when he did try being drunk for a role. "When I was doing Indecent Proposal, I had this one scene, and I was supposed to be really drunk, contesting Robert Redford's love for Demi Moore, and I got smashed because I was supposed to be, so I rationalized it, and that wasn't a pleasant experience." That means Harrelson's Hunger Games portrayal of Katniss Everdeen's perpetually sloshed mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, is 100 percent pure acting. As for Elizabeth Banks' excuse for the direction she chose to take the Effie Trinket character? Let's just say we hope the inside of her set trailer looks like a frat party.

In True Romance (1993), the ultra-violent thrill ride that actually jump-started Quentin Tarantino's career (He wrote the script.), Michael Rapaport plays Dick Ritchie, an aspiring actor who is also one of Clarence (Christian Slater)'s good buddies. There's a hilarious scene where they're negotiating a drug deal on a rollercoaster, which Rapaport admits in Maxim's oral history of the film, was not something he enjoyed doing. In fact, he ruined the first take by puking, after which he admits, "The second time, they sedated me. Some shots show me smiling because I'm drugged out of my mind, and some show me crying because I honestly thought I was going to crap." Director Tony Scott got more specific, "Pinchot was s****ing himself, and Rapaport was so scared that he dropped a bunch of Quaaludes and couldn't say his lines."

So, no, Rapaport's high-on-set story isn't exactly as scandalous as Downey smoking heroin, Sheen drinking himself into a mental breakdown, or Embry sullying the memory of a beloved '90s teen comedy, but it does provide us with additional backstory that makes watching this memorable scene even funnier. Enjoy.