Disturbing Ways Directors Have Gotten Actors To Cry

When Meryl Streep was still relatively unknown in Hollywood, she signed on to play Joanna in the film Kramer vs. Kramer. It's hard to imagine a director being unsatisfied with Streep's performance, but Robert Benton had no real way of knowing what to expect from his young star. AS it turned out, he didn't have to take matters into his own hands in pursuit of the rawest possible performance — Streep's costar, Dustin Hoffman, did the work for him. On the second day of shooting, Hoffman shocked Streep by slapping her across the face before the cameras started rolling, leaving her hurt and roiled for an emotional scene.

After shooting wrapped that day, Benton was worried that Streep wouldn't come back, but against all odds, she remained committed to the film. Still, the emotional wound incurred during that scene remained — in a 2018 interview, Streep remarked, "I'm sure that I have inadvertently hurt people in physical scenes. But there's a certain amount of forgiveness in that. But this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping."