Besides enduring seven months of shooting in Alberta, Canada, for "The Revenant," actor Leonardo DiCaprio also had to eat a bison liver. Tasting the animal internal organ was part of keeping authentic to his character of a fur trapper during the 1820s.
The 41-year-old actor describes biting into the liver as like having a balloon inside his mouth which bursts because of the membrane around it. There was actually a fake liver made from jelly by the film's props department, but because he thought it did not look right using a fake internal organ, he cleared the matter with his lawyer and agents and asked the producer to use real bison liver which could expose him to potential diseases.
Other challenges he endured for the film, directed by Alejandro Innaritu, include enduing the below 40 temperature for more than half a year, application of 47 different prosthetics to look like body wounds from a bear attack, reports Variety.
He also had to grow and live with a long beard for a year and a half for "The Revenant." He compares the beard experience to like having a spouse you have to sleep with. When the time came to shave the facial hair, he compares it to "like shaving off dreads."
The film, which opens on Dec. 25, is speculated to give DiCaprio his first Oscar win after four nominations.
Despite the challenges, the actor gives his thumbs up to Innaritu, explaining, "I don't want to work with somebody who isn't thinking of every possible aspect of what's up on the screen. I think there's a hunger for audiences to see something completely extreme and difficult."