'Anime

* Anno Hideaki, the eccentric director of Neon Genesis Evangelion, infamously told Ogata Megumi (the voice actress of Ikari Shinji) to literally strangle Miyamura Yuko (the voice of Souryuu Asuka Langley) during the recording of the scene where Shinji tries to strangle Asuka in End Of Evangelion. Allegedly the results were so realistic that Ogata Megumi had to profusely apologise to Miyamura Yuko in the aftermath. '

WHAT?!?

This whole article kinda rocked.

Alfred Hitchcock was fond of this type of acting. For example, when he made the film version of Rebecca, the story called for Joan Fontaine (who played Mrs De Winter) to be nervous around the other actors. To acheive this, Hitchcock told her that no one else on set liked her.
hahaha, nice.

i'm surprised the shining isn't in here. kubrick famously made olive oyl do over 100 takes for one scene. that shoot became famous because he was a manipulative asshole in order to coax the performances.