This post contains mentions of substance abuse.
1. First, Daniel Radcliffe revealed that he was drinking heavily while filming the later Harry Potter movies in order to deal with his level of fame. While he "never drank at work on Harry Potter," he said he does recall going to work "still drunk."
2. Omri Katz said he was stoned while filming Hocus Pocus in 1993. "That was at an age where I started experimenting with cannabis," he began. "Let's just say, some of those scenes, I was having a good old time."
3. André Roussimoff, aka André the Giant, reportedly drank a lot while filming The Princess Bride in order to "deal with the pain" due to a back injury. Cary Elwes recalled, "He was due to have an operation right after the shoot, and his doctor didn’t know what kind of pain medication to give him because of his size, so the only way that he could deal with the pain was to drink alcohol. And it didn’t affect him at all. He didn’t flub a line or miss a day. The guy could handle his liquor, let me tell ya."
4. Andrew McCarthy said he was abusing alcohol while filming Pretty in Pink. He said, "I was so hungover for that whole movie. … I'm thinking 'God, I got a headache. I am just dying here. I got to go lay down.' But on film, it came across a certain way."
5. Jennifer Lawrence talked about how the cast of Catching Fire sometimes drank together while filming a few scenes. In particular, Josh Hutcherson recalled "running around acting like total idiots" while filming a scene with Jennifer and Woody Harrelson, with Jennifer adding, "We were drunk. That was fun. That was the first time I've ever drank at work."
6. In a 2010 interview, Carrie Fisher admitted to doing cocaine while filming Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. "We did cocaine on the set of Empire in the ice planet," Carrie said. "I didn't even like coke that much. It was just a case of getting on whatever train I needed to take to get high."
7. Prior to his death in 2023, Matthew Perry was very vocal about his alcohol and drug abuse while starring on Friends. In his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew wrote, "You can track the trajectory for my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season. When I’m carrying weight, it's alcohol; when I'm skinny, it's pills; when I have a goatee, it’s a lot of pills."
8. Christine Baranski cleared up the long-standing rumor that the cast of Mamma Mia! was drunk while filming the movie, by saying they never drank on set, but were very hungover one day after going out to dinner and drinking Tsipouro, a Greek spirit that has a 40%–45% ABV. While Christine didn't have to film the next day, Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skargård reportedly had to shoot their final scene.
9. Judy Garland was reportedly given various pills by the studio while filming The Wizard of Oz and her other early movies. Judy told her biographer, "They had us working days and nights on end. They’d give us pills to keep us on our feet long after we were exhausted. Then they’d take us to the studio hospital and knock us out with sleeping pills."
10. While filming Jaws, there was reportedly constant fear that Robert Shaw's drinking "would delay filming." Robert reportedly drank frequently between takes, and his son Ian Shaw even recalled, "He got too drunk to perform the Indianapolis speech when he finished writing it. He had to beg Steven to have another go, and then he got it right the following morning."
11. While shooting Billy Madison, Norm Macdonald admitted that he had a few drinks before filming certain scenes. Adam Sandler recalled shooting a scene in a pool where he said a line, waited for Norm to say his line back, and then realized Norm had fallen asleep.
12. John Leguizamo said he "drank a lot between takes" while filming Super Mario Bros. in 1993 where he played Luigi. The drinking on set even led to him accidentally breaking Bob Hoskins's hand while filming one scene.
13. And finally, while filming their 1965 movie Help!, The Beatles were stoned for a majority of the filming. John Lennon said, "We were smoking marijuana for breakfast during that period. Nobody could communicate with us, it was all glazed eyes and giggling all the time. In our own world. It's like doing nothing most of the time, but still having to rise at 7 a.m., so we became bored."
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.