Ever since he burst onto the scene with his first major film part in 1993’s This Boy’s Life, earning the admiration of Robert De Niro, it was clear that Leonardo DiCaprio was set for a life and career in the spotlight, and the Los Angeles-born actor has made good on his early promise several times over.

The eventual Academy Award winner has unduly become one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, and he’s given some of the most iconic acting turns in the history of contemporary cinema, including efforts in the likes of Titanic, Romeo + Juliet, Gangs of New York, Django Unchained and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

With so many truly iconic performances to his name, it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of all the movies that DiCaprio has starred in. One such film that perhaps doesn’t shine in the memory of DiCaprio compared to some of his other efforts is the 2000 spy action thriller movie Body of Lies, directed by Ridley Scott.

Also starring Russell Crowe and Golshifteh Farahani, Body of Lies takes part in the Middle East and focuses on the mission of the CIA and Jordan’s GID to catch an elusive terrorist. However, there’s a stark difference in approach between the CIA operatives and the Jordanian intelligence leader that leads to strain in their respective relationships.

However, it appears that the real strain of Body of Lies was suffered by DiCaprio himself, who once admitted in an interview with The Guardian that Scott’s film was “a very hard shoot, very rough”. The actor explained, “I’ve done a lot of action sequences before, but this is a Ridley Scott movie. You are always moving locations at lightning speed.”

According to DiCaprio, Scott would come in “at any given second” and tell his cast and crew. “I want a helicopter to come in and shoot two missiles, and I want that to be on camera, and I want to have a surveillance camera 2,000ft in the air shooting on top of your head.” The result was that DiCaprio was kept on his toes for most of the shoot with a constant “adrenaline rush”.

“At some points, you really don’t know what’s going to happen,” the actor explained. “You have to be prepared dramatically to have any given scene changed at any moment. It makes you trust your instincts more. It makes you delve deep into yourself.” There was one scene, though, that DiCaprio really had to dig deep into all his strength, a torture scene that he could barely manage to stomach.

According to the actor, the torture scene towards the end of Body of Lies is “pivotal”, so the movie would not work if Scott, his actors and crew could not capture it properly. “We needed to make it important, pertinent and controversial,” DiCaprio explained. With so much riding on the scene, DiCaprio contacted former members of the CIA to learn how his character “would be handling himself.”

However, because of the pivotal nature of the scene, DiCaprio admitted, “I almost had a physical breakdown at the end of it”. The actor explained, “So a lot of what you see on the film is my breaking point. I physically collapsed for a few days after that. I got sick because of the intensity of it.” So, while Body of Lies might not be amongst DiCaprio’s most memorable efforts on screen, it might just be his most harrowing.