25 Actors Who Are Crazy In Real Life

Certified and certifiable.

Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

For a good portion of Hollywood celebrities, the gift of success brings with it the curse of insanity. Each week it seems like a different actor's personal demons, which are compounded by the stresses of fame, send them straight into the waiting arms of TMZ to document their downfall. Meanwhile there are others who have to this day, avoided public embarrassment, but have nonetheless been labeled crazy because they're eccentric.

Complex is here to give you just a few of the nutjobs Hollyweird has enabled over the years. Some are quirky. Some are dangers to society. And for some reason at least a third of them have chosen to unleash their special brand of weird on David Letterman's stage. Lose your mind with 25 Actors Who Are Crazy In Real Life.

Written by Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)

Faye Dunaway

The decorated veteran actress keeps it light most of the time, but, having played one of America’s most famous outlaws, she too is known to get gangster when she feels the need to. Of course, her assessment of when the moment calls for it differs vastly from that of a sane, less egomaniacal person. Ms. Dunaway is notorious for blacking out on anyone in the service industry (hotel concierge, flight attendants) who would dare to give her anything less than the best, but beyond that, she isn’t above thugging journalists should they—God forbid—not stick to her script.

She left a hilariously batshit string of voicemails for her biographer’s producer, redundantly railing on the poor guy for asking too many questions about her Joan Crawford flop Mommie Dearest. A Guardian reporter who had the stones to bring up Roman Polanski was unceremoniously shown the door in frantic, shrieking fashion.

And what about Roman makes Faye rage so? Well, the story goes that she and the director quickly built up a contentious relationship on the set of Chinatown due to his controlling methods, a tense situation that boiled over when he made her do numerous takes of the same car scene despite her pleas for a bathroom break. Did Faye freak out and storm off set? Nope. Instead, when Polanski bent down to the car window to give her yet another piece of direction, she rolled the window down, threw a coffee cup full of liquid in his face and rolled the window back up. Bathroom break achieved.

Joaquin Phoenix

Did Joaquin Phoenix just publicly lose his mind on late night television, or was it all a hoax? That was the question on everyone’s minds in February 2009 when River’s little brother appeared on Late Show with David Letterman looking like one of the Geico cavemen, with an announcement that he was retiring from acting to pursue a hip-hop career.

Of course, he and Casey Affleck later revealed the shenanigans were all part of a mockumentary they were filming called I’m Not Here. But we’d like to point out that while that February Late Show appearance was bizarre, no one was positively shocked the next day. Why not? Because Joaquin had a history of alcoholism and was prone to behavior that was classified as eccentric at best. He and Casey can tell us this was a hoax all along, but if it ever came out that at one point a J. Phoenix album was seriously in the cards, we wouldn’t be surprised.

Tilda Swinton

There’s a weird, quiet intensity always emanating from Tilda Swinton that makes it seem as if she has a couple screws loose—or extra tight. Add in her Voldemort-esque, gender-ambiguous facial features and she’s pretty much doomed to always appear unsettling.

Turns out she’s got some unsettling behavior in her past to match, as the We Have To Talk About Kevin star revealed to the Guardian that at age 4 she had a Macaulay Culkin, Good Son moment and contemplated killing her baby brother out of sibling jealousy. And, of a particularly rough boarding school tenure that didn’t agree with her, she said, “I didn’t speak for five years.” On-screen intensity has to come from somewhere within.

Kiefer Sutherland

The gravel-voiced action icon has a history of DUIs as well as plain ol’ drunken misbehavior, like taking his shirt off in strip clubs because, we suppose, there’s no better way to thank strippers for their dedicated hard work than going topless in solidarity.

Then there are the times Sutherland bought into his own press and handled certain situations Jack Bauer-style to account for. In ’09 he head-butted a fashion designer who allegedly made a lewd comment to his good friend Brooke Shields. And in 2006, while partying with the band he manages at a London hotel, Kief Bauer spotted what we can only assume was a suspicious looking Christmas tree and, in the name of "justice first, questions later," he tackled and smashed it around the lobby—but not before first promising the staff he’d pay for it, of course.

Wesley Snipes

We already know Wesley is more than a little nutty when it comes to the taxes, but comedian/character actor Patton Oswalt recently revealed to AV Club one of the best set anecdotes ever in regards to Blade: Trinity that shed light on just how wild for the night Snipes is. Apparently we have him to thank for Ryan Reynold’s myriad of so corny-they’re-awesome puns that almost make the forgettable threequel worthwhile, because at that point Wes was calling his own shots.

He frequently battled with director David Goyer, refused to come out of his pot-den trailer for anything other than close-ups, and when he did decide to act, the result was so flat and emotionless that Reynolds was given free reign to go ham on the improv. In the name of delivering this great performance, Wes remained firmly in character on set, going so far as to introduce himself as Blade on Patton’s first day.

His antics peaked when he attempted to strangle Goyer during one of his rare set appearances, which led the frightened director to enlist a couple of local Vancouver bikers to be his “bodyguards.” The fracas was enough to push Wesley to cut first-hand interaction with Goyer off completely, opting for post-its as a means of communication for the rest of the shoot. Each of which was, of course, signed “Blade.”

Sean Young

The last time Sean Young did anything approaching even a sliver of relevance, it was “Sean Young Isn’t Crazy” a fall 2011 viral video that…mocked that one wacky time when she visited the Late Show (What is it about Dave that attracts the nutjobs?) with a video of her parading around Hollywood in her homemade Catwoman costume begging for acting work. This was after she paraded around the Warner Bros. lot in the costume, doing her best (read: the worst) Eartha Kitt impression and purring nonsensically at Michael Keaton and Tim Burton in a desperate bid to get the role in Batman Returns.

So yes, Sean Young is in fact, out of her mind. And those don’t even begin to cover her greatest hits. In the past decade the C-list actress has been escorted from at least three awards events: once for heckling an award recipient to just “get to it!” mid acceptance speech, and twice for trying to sneak in uninvited.

She was reportedly hell on the Wall Street set, jealous that she was only playing Gordon Gekko’s wife instead of Daryl Hannah’s meatier, flashier role, and walked off with her entire set wardrobe at the end of shooting as consolation.

And depending on who’s telling the story, she once obsessively stalked James Woods after their late ’80s romance ended. Call us crazy but we’re inclined to believe James on this one.

Lily Tomlin

The comedienne has her crazy contained to one noteworthy incident, that we know of, but boy is it a doozy. Director David O. Russell is known for his eccentric methods to elicit the best performance possible from his actors, and on the set of I Heart Hucakbees, Lily Tomlin didn’t take to his particular type of motivation.

A pair of on-set videos reveals them both getting on each other’s bad side respectively: Tomlin positively loses her shit during a car scene in a tirade that would make Ari Gold blush, threatening to “break the whole fucking set up.” Then she gets her revenge when she systematically pushes Russell’s buttons until he blows up at her in front of the cast and crew, cursing her out while storming all over the place, hilariously re-appearing in different spots on the set. And you thought your workplace was rife with tension.

Tom Cruise

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are going through the divorce motions now, but just eight years ago, he was jumping on Oprah’s couch like Kevin McCallister because he was oh so in love with her. What was intended as a cute display of love was instead an instant pop-culture moment that served as an initial alert that Tom had maybe lost some of his marbles in between all of those action movie chase scenes.

Then there’s the reason Katie is rumored to be leaving him for in the first place: Scientology. Plenty of actors have adopted the cult-like religion, but Cruise’s support is on an otherworldly level, and can be very off-putting to others. Just ask Brooke Shields and Matt Lauer, both of whom had very public spats with Tom about the validity of postpartum depression, chemical imbalances, and the like.

Whether the Church of Scientology planned Katie Holmes’ pregnancy to position Suri Cruise as the harbinger of their worldwide takeover, well…that remains to be seen. We just like his movies.

Charlie Sheen

The reigning Best Lunatic Alive. Carlos Estevez is out of his mind for sure, but unlike other actors who’ve suffered meltdowns—some of whom are on this list—Chuck has managed to not only stage a comeback (of sorts), but also profit off of the public downfall itself. We were all witnesses when he lost what was at the time the highest paid acting gig in television, and all of the cringe-worthy (but let’s face it, also kind of awesome) tiger blood talk that came after.

But Sheen had been battling substance abuse since the '90s, and before the goddesses and Brook Mueller, there was Kelly Preston, his fiancé that he accidentally shot in the arm not long before she broke off the engagement. Charlie is a habitual fuck-up, and yet somehow, continues to win, and make winning his de facto trademark at that.

Russell Crowe

The actor famous for playing bruisers like Maximus (Gladiator) and Officer Bud White (L.A. Confidential) unsurprisingly has an off-the-charts temper off set as well. He’s been linked to a number of brawls and otherwise violent altercations, but none more infamous than the 2005 incident that saw him chuck a telephone at a hotel concierge who refused to help him place a phone call.

And speaking of phone calls, a DreamWorks biography titled The Men Who Would Be King reveals how Russ decided to deal with a producer he felt was short-changing his assistants on Gladiator. He dialed dude in the dead of night, and opened the conversation with: “You motherfucker. I’ll kill you with my bare hands.” Needless to say, said producer hung up within seconds and asked to be removed from the film.

Anne Heche

So you popped a Molly and you’re sweating, huh? Well, back in 2000, Anne Heche took some E, walked around the fringes of Fresno in just a bra and shorts and nearly two miles later ended up at a stranger’s house. The good Samaritan happily obliged the movie star with water and a shower, but got understandably freaked out when Anne showed no intentions of leaving and asked to watch a movie instead. When authorities arrived, Heche proclaimed that she was God, and was going to “take everyone back to Heaven in a spaceship.”

We wish we could say the moral of the story is "Drugs are bad!" but unfortunately it’s a bit deeper than that. Anne later explained that she suffered regular abuse from her father as a child, and created an alternate universe and personality—Celestia of the Fourth Dimension, half-sister of Jesus Christ—as a mental escape from her trauma. Thirteen years after “the event,” she lives happily with actor husband James Tupper and two kids. We’re glad she was able to put the past behind her.

Dennis Hopper

Though he mellowed out into the eccentric veteran during the latter years of his career and life, Dennis Hopper (R.I.P.) was a Hollywood wild child during the '70s and '80s, a hippie who denounced materialism. He celebrated the success of Easy Rider by living in self-imposed seclusion in a small town far from the beaten path.

But that didn’t stop him from sweeping people up in his insane orbit, such as the time Kris Kristofferson witnessed Dennis cause a priest to get defrocked for helping him pull off a weirdo mass for James Dean. We’re sure everyone that crossed Hopper’s path during those days was genuinely surprised when the same guy wound up doing Starz series with Jim Jones and retirement-fund commercials years later.

Nicolas Cage

The eccentric gazillionaire is both a weirdo in his personal life and his career choices. This is the same guy who won a well deserved Oscar for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas, delivered a slew of worthy turns in both critically acclaimed films and crowd-pleasing blockbusters but then does certified snoozers like Bangkok Dangerous, Next, or Trespass.

There’s a 50-50 chance each film that he’ll sleepwalk through it, or overact so EVERY. LINE. REA-DING COMES. O FF. LIKE. THIS. As for his personal life, well, he likes to purchase rare dinosaur skulls in his downtime, has a pyramid prepared for his body to rest in after his death (which we admit, is kind of awesome), dresses crazy-style, has more than a couple classic sloppy-drunk embarrassments , and he only eats animals that he deems have dignified sex (so pigs are out). Then there’s his youngest son, named after Superman. That’s right, Kal-el Cage. Marvel and DC connect!

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is always going to be perceived as a strange guy because he’s earned a reputation for playing strange characters. He is, without a doubt, one of the best character actors of our time, but we say, you’re tripping if you think a guy that’s made a career out of playing weirdos isn’t drawing from somewhere within each time he does. So what’s Walken’s crazy character trait?

He’s obsessed with…cats. The actor has been known to share with others his feline fascination, particularly the tail. He’s even waxed poetic about the myriad expressions cats can convey simply through their tail, and how cool and game-changing it would be if actors had one as well. We’re expecting him to be cast as Blofeld in the next Daniel Craig Bond entry any day now.

Nick Nolte

Most celebrities age gracefully into their elder years, adapting their career along with it and maintaining relevance in the process. Nick Nolte, plays Dance Dance Revolution. Back in 2001, 48 Hours documented the veteran actor’s obsessive attempts to do, what he described as, “slowing down the aging process.”

This involves the aforementioned DDR, to keep up exercise and reflexes, as well a strict organic diet, and regiment of pills and vitamin drips in an attempt to keep pristine health. While running a series of physical tests at a Dallas clinic (run by a renowned anti-aging doctor), dude goes so hard he literally passes out for a quick spell. One year after the 48 Hours special, he was arrested for drunk driving in Malibu with GHB on his person, which he claimed to be taking for four years without “getting raped.”

Nolte, last seen in the disappointing Gangster Squad, is 71 now and looks every bit his age, so we can officially chalk the anti-aging, Dance Dance Revolution, GHB regiment up as a failure, right?

Lindsay Lohan

The beleaguered starlet has been fighting a losing battle with substance abuse since 2007, but her strange behavior isn’t easily blamed on just the drugs. She’s an absolute nightmare behind the wheel, she allegedly slugged a woman in a NYC nightclub last fall, and then to round out the wacko rap sheet, there’s that one time in 2007 that she allegedly “chased and threatened” her then personal-assistant’s mother around a Santa Monica parking lot. As the recent NYT profile suggests, this is not a woman you want on your set if you can help it.

Crispin Glover

What is it about David Letterman’s late night show that makes the Hollyweird crazies choose it to reveal how whacked out of their mind they are? Back in ’87, Crispin (whose middle name is Hellion) pulled a stunt that Joaquin Phoenix would later replicate when he came on Dave’s show wearing platform shoes and a wig, in character for the film Rubin and Ed.

The only problem was, nobody knew what the hell Rubin and Ed was (it was released four years later) and all of Glover’s antics—like challenging Dave to an arm-wrestling match and executing a karate kick just inches from his face—forced Letterman to walk off of his own set. As with Phoenix, you can choose to believe that Glover, who appeared on Letterman twice after the incident under normal circumstances, was simply trying to pull off a stunt, but no one would blame you if you assumed the guy who convincingly played Willard the rat king is also weird as fuck in real life.

Gary Busey

Words barely scratch the surface when it comes to describing the insanity of Gary Busey. A single look is all one really needs to determine that he’s out of this world. But there are things even crazier to the man than imaginable once he opens that creepy wide mouth of his. At any given moment he can spout metaphysical nonsense, quantum theory, spiritual musings, or… anecdotes about how he used to rail lines of coke off of his dog.

Is Gary Busey a misunderstood savant? The victim of a tragic loss of inhibition thanks to head injuries sustained from his infamous 1988 motorcycle crash? Or is he simply yet another cautionary tale of the dangers of substance abuse? With the kind of shit Gary talks, it’s probably all three and then some.

Courtney Love

Cocaine is a hell of a drug. So is heroin. And LSD. Courtney Love has been on all three and more. Possibly at the same time. We hope she kicked it all during her pregnancy with Frances Bean but who knows.

There really isn’t anything nuts that Kurt Cobain’s one true love hasn’t done. She completed the Celebrity Nutjob Rite of Passage by going on Letterman and losing her mind —and her top—for all of late night to see, she’s gone on incoherent, rambling rants on all the major social media platforms, railed at flight attendants for no real reason at all, and had an onstage meltdown at a concert when a fan held up a picture of Kurt.

If Charlie Sheen is the crazy equivalent of the prom king, then Courtney is most certainly the queen, with more intoxicated public appearances and sour custody battles than the Sheen could attempt if he tried. Poor Frances Bean.

Mel Gibson

If nothing else, no one could ever accuse Mel Gibson of being anything less than an equal opportunity basket case. From a 1991 interview that suggested homophobia all the way down through his notorious phone call/rant to girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, where he randomly posits a scenario of her getting raped by “a pack of niggers,” Mel has managed to offend almost every major group, but he’s got the least love for the Chosen People.

During a 2006 DUI arrest he reportedly complained that the “fucking Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” The guy seems to be next to a recorder every time he has something wild to say or his Peter Dinklage-short temper flies off the handle, but the aforementioned phone recordings to Oksana took the legend of Mel Gibson to new lows.

Juliette Lewis

Juliette is yet another agent of Scientology, working her travels as both a character actress and rock musician to execute some hardcore recruiting techniques that have turned some portions of Hollywood cold towards her. The rock side of Lewis’s life (she leads the band Juliette and the Licks) is what really helped her earn the crazy label, thanks to her frenetic presence on stage as well as interviews. The woman loves her art, and she loves hard.

Klaus Kinski

The German actor, most famous for working alongside Werner Herzog, was quite the manic personality on set and off, with those closest to him assuming that acting was a conduit for him to channel his personal demons. Before he made it big, he was known to fly into rages at the drop of a dime. Once he had to be sequestered into his apartment bathroom to calm down, and he ended up trashing the space for two days straight.

Danny Bonaduce

Danny Bonaduce achieved fame at an early age as Danny Partridge, but he achieved infamy in his adult years thanks to a string of notable arrests. In a twist of hilarious irony, he got bumped in 1990 for buying cocaine in Daytona Beach while attending a D.A.R.E. event that he was set to participate in.

Helena Bonham Carter

Is anyone surprised by the notion that Tim Burton’s wife and portrayer of nutjobs like Bellatrix Lestrange, Marla Singer, and every other role in any macabre film that would have her, is actually batty in real life? For example, when she showed up on Craig Ferguson’s late night show to promote Alice in Wonderland, she instead promoted Avatar (which she does not appear in), brought along several gruesomely designed mugs, and was genuinely indistinguishable from any of the weirdos she plays on-screen. So yeah, her niche casting is art imitating life.

Angelina Jolie

Angelina is not crazy per se, but she definitely plays by her own set of rules, especially in her earlier days. Her affinity for blood was especially troubling, particularly when she wrote Jonny Lee Miller’s name across a white t-shirt in her own blood at their wedding or the time she and second husband Billy Bob Thornton infamously sported necklaces attached to vials of each other’s blood in public.

And of course there was that time she greeted her brother with a five second French kiss. The maturity of motherhood seems to have curbed most of her wild behavior, but don’t be surprised if she and Brad get tattoos of each other’s name with their own blood as the ink when they finally tie the knot.