Taylor Kitsch had to have councelling after nearly killing himself getting ready to play Kevin Carter; the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and member of the feted Bang Bang Club.
To play Carter, Kitsch had to lose 35 pounds and ended up giving himself all sorts of physical problems.
“It wasn’t smart,” he said. “I tried to run at least 10 miles a day on fruit and coffee. Just barely any protein – I was ripped at the time, so I had to lose all the muscle. I remember doing the physical in Texas, and because I was running so much, I had a very low heart rate, and it got super low.”
“The doctor couldn’t find it, and then finally he found it and goes. ‘If I write down your actual heart rate, you’re not going to do this film.’ So I went and did some push-ups and got it up to a reasonable number. I literally didn’t have the energy to walk around the mall.”
“So that was physically, and then just the challenge emotionally to get there every day for Kev [Carter]… The last few scenes, he’s just a wreck, and, to play that honestly, it just took a lot out of me.”
“You almost fucking kill yourself to get there. You need counselling, you need all this shit to come out of that character.”
