Natalie Portman won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in Black Swan. Portman spent an entire year in a rigorous ballet program for eight hours a day every day. She lost 20 pounds, which may not seem substantial, but the already-small actress only weighed 98 pounds during filming.
These dramatic "live like the character" stories make me laugh. Adrien Brody sold off his stuff and moved to Europe with two bags to pretend to understand what it was like to be a concentration camp survivor. The key ingredient for all of them is missing...the reality of the situation and knowing that it's just all just pretend and going home to palatial digs when it's all done or in Brody's case, just going to an ATM and checking in to the most expensive hotel in Paris when you get tired of roughing it . All of this is just drama on and off the set.