Enough fire and smoke, and anyone can bean action hero. The majority of the dudes on-screen kicking ass and taking names, posing without their shirts, wouldn’t last five minutes in a bar-room brawl. When the stuntmen finish extinguishing their smoldering clothes and the EMT crews on stand-by go home, you find out a lot about an actor. Just ask Jack O’Halloran, who nearlybeat the crapout of hisSupermanco-star, Christopher Reeve, on set.
Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise only play bad asses on-screen. It’s a testament to their charisma and determination to their stunt-work that they can pull off those kinds of roles. However, to argue that they are scary in real life is pushing the bounds of credibility. We all know that ex-wrestlers like Roddy Piper or Dave Bautista could make your life miserable if you challenged them to a fist fight, but what about the rest of the industry? Who’s a phony, and who could permanently rearrange your face?
When it comes to real tough guys, there’s plenty of prize-fighters and gridiron stars, but everything pales in comparison to serving in a real war. Adam Driver’s acting career was a fluke, medicallydischarged before he saw combat, settling for California instead of Afghanistan. We had to go back a couple generations to find any A-listers who actually risked their lives in real combat, but a few actors stand out.
Pain Brokers
It’s a distant memory now, but Terry Crews once split duties as a linebacker and on the defensive line before he landed any acting role. Racking up five years in the NFL on the LA Rams and a bevy of other teams, he later did a stint in the American Gladiators-rip offBattle Domeas the bling-loving, racial stereotype, T Money. Luckily, Crews found more substantial roles than grappling strangers in a giant hamster wheel.
Predatorstar Carl Weatherswas born to be an action star, delving into boxing, football, judo, and wrestling before realizing that reciting lines was a lot less taxing. His big break came when he slid effortlessly into the role of the slick-talking, heavyweight champ Apollo Creed in theRockyseries, (parts I - IV). It’s a good thing they were just acting, because Weathers could easily have decapitated Stallone. That’s a trend we will see often repeated in this article, sorry Stallone fans.
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The ’80s Icons
Some guys play tough guys in movies, and some are born with a chip on their shoulders. You gotta be tough when you’re a boy growing uppracticing ballet in Texasin the 1960s. Patrick Swayze is one of the few guys who could pull off roles that required us to believe he could ballroom dance and be a bouncer at a redneck bar. What’s the difference between an arabesque and a roundhouse kick? If you’re Swayze, not much.
From the greatest mullet of the decade to the finest mohawk ever crafted, we have Mr. T. The man not only survived a childhood in the Chicago projects, he was so tough that Muhammad Ali hired him as protection. Meeting the young wrestler, Ali shared some life-altering advice about standing out from a crowd, but always being ready toback up the brash talk: “You’ve got to be different, but good,” the actor remembered. Mr. T later incorporated that swagger into his film role as Clubber Lee inRocky III. Like Weathers (and Dolph Lundgren and Tommy Morrison following him), Mr. T was just one in a long line of brawlers whom Stallone hand-picked for their ability to pretend to be hurt.
Painting the Canvas
Speaking of boxing, there’s nobody in Hollywood who ever stood a remote chance of winning a championship belt in real life. Make that one guy, Randall “Tex” Cobb. Throughout the ’80s, the perennial contender made a run at the belt, somehow managing to build up an acting resume as he missed out on the elusive championship. The character actor was never afraid to fight, once losing out on a potential shot at the belt after he was ambushed in a bar-room beating by a dozen men “carrying baseball bats and tire irons” that resulted in a broken arm.
Mickey Rourke is no stranger to roles that demand he take a beating, his physicality palpable in this portrayal Randy “The Ram” inThe Wrestler. Out of all the actors in Hollywood action films, Rourke is probably one of the few A-listers that could take a punch … or a dozen. Making a hobby out of getting concussions and removing blood stains from his trunks as a kid, he returned to the sportto celebrate Social Security eligibility.
Rourke’s in good company when it comes to boxers turned thespians. Ryan O’Neal disguised his athletic talents in a series of romances and comedies as a brooding ladies’ man. As a teen he progressed from the Golden Gloves circuit to stunt work to top-billing. Likewise, Wesley Snipes isn’t posing when he breaks out the karate moves, training in multiple martial arts for 50 years, still in amazing shape. The on-screen ass-kickings he took from Sylvester Stallone inDemolition Manare comical, but that’s why they call it acting.
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The Heartthrobs Who Changed History
Outwardly a nepotistic fop, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was frequently named one ofHollywood’s best dressedpersonalities. You wouldn’t expect much of moral depth or personality, but thankfully he took his military oath as seriously as his role as a pirate. Assigned to a commando unit in WWII, he soon rose up the ranks, ending his career as one of the most innovative and daring special operations commanders. He not only participated but helped plan and lead a paratrooper squad who took the Italian fortress island of Ventotene.
Effortlessly dishing out violence with a dead-eyed stare, Lee Marvin had a lot of practice. The gawky Marine might not have had the looks to play romantic leads, but his baritone voice and imposing stature guaranteed roles as villains and anti-heroes. He ended his service with as many hunks of metal pinned on his chest as inside his body, surviving multiple gun shoot wounds while taking Saipan as a US Marine sniper. Most of his division didn’t survive. In interviews, he wasuncomfortable discussing the reality of combat, saying only that films played some role in showing the carnage, because “nobody wanted to see a newsreel of true death and destruction.” There’s no way of knowing if all those future war movies he’d film were therapeutic or triggering somedeeply repressed PTSDsince guys back then customarily joked about getting shot up.
