Actor Dane Dehaan struggled with nightmares while shooting creepy new thriller A Cure For Wellness as he relived his filming schedule in his sleep.
The actor plays a young executive sent to meet his company’s CEO at a remote wellness centre in the Swiss Alps, but he quickly realises the place is so much more than a spa when he becomes a ‘patient’.
And his own imagination got the better of him when he filmed back-to-back torture scenes for director Gore Verbinski’s film.
“There were a lot of physically challenging days,” he tells WENN. “There was one month that I like to refer to as my month of torture when they decided to schedule all of those scenes back to back – I was either in the sensory deprivation tank or the dentist’s chair, which was really scary.
“I was strapped in and couldn’t move. There’s a drill coming at your face, even if it’s made of rubber it’s still pretty darn scary… I had nightmares from it and restless nights.”
Dane admits his sleep patterns were affected for weeks afterwards.
“Definitely dreaming about what I’m doing is important to me,” he adds. “I would have a lot of dreams about being in places and not being able to escape them and trying to navigate those places.
“The day after the dentist scenes you better believe I was having dentist dreams. I think actors can get a lot of work done in their dreams. It becomes this obsessive thing.”
And The Amazing Spider-Man 2 star admits he actually experienced some physical pain while making the movie, when his arm “popped out” while shooting a car crash scene.
“It popped back in and I just went on with the day,” he says with a smile.
