10 actors who real­ly learned how to get down for a film role

Depart­ing from his typ­i­cal­ly straight-laced on-screen per­sona, Ralph Fiennes throws some seri­ous shapes in direc­tor Luca Guadagnino’s new film, A Big­ger Splash. Fiennes plays Har­ry Hawkes, an eccen­tric music pro­duc­er who springs an unex­pect­ed vis­it on his rock-star ex-lover Mar­i­anne Lane (Til­da Swin­ton), who is hol­i­day­ing with her boyfriend (Matthias Schoe­naerts) on the Ital­ian island of Pan­tel­le­ria. In a stand-out scene, Hawkes gyrates to the Rolling Stones track ​‘Emo­tion­al Res­cue’ while strut­ting around Lane’s villa.

Fiennes’ errat­ic, infec­tious frug­ging looks like inspired impro­vi­sa­tion but was actu­al­ly care­ful­ly planned by chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Ann Yee to per­fect­ly encap­su­late the mani­ac gar­ish­ness of his char­ac­ter. This daz­zling dad-danc­ing got us think­ing about oth­er mem­o­rable danc­ing scenes. From elo­quent hip-thrust­ing to ball-room danc­ing here are 10 boo­gie­li­cious per­for­mances from actors who real­ly learned their moves.

Amaz­ing­ly, Toby Maguire actu­al­ly under­took spe­cial train­ing to per­fect these god-awful moves, work­ing with a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er plus a num­ber of oth­er move­ment spe­cial­ists. The ques­tion of who­ev­er thought a sin­is­ter Peter Park­er fin­ger-click­ing his way around New York would be a good idea remains a mystery.

Nev­er give into peer pres­sure. Mark Ruf­fa­lo learns this the hard way as he’s bul­lied by Jen­nifer Gar­ner into giv­ing a ren­di­tion of ​‘Thriller’. Ruffalo’s appar­ent strug­gle to learn the icon­ic dance is clear in this awk­ward, arrhyth­mic per­for­mance which quite lit­er­al­ly embraces the hor­ror ele­ments of this Michael Jack­son hit.

It should come as no sur­prise that Lee Gross­man – a foul-mouthed, ill-tem­pered stu­dio exec­u­tive who gets down to Ludacris – was entire­ly Tom Cruise’s cre­ation. Embody­ing the ener­getic swag­ger of a first-time club­ber, Cruise’s jiv­ing is eye-catch­ing for all of the wrong rea­sons. Lord of the Dance he ain’t.

Mim­ic­k­ing the inten­si­ty of musi­cal leg­end Otis Red­ding, Duckie’s (Jon Cry­er) ded­i­ca­tion is nev­er in doubt, quite lit­er­al­ly throw­ing him­self around the new wave music store, TRAX. Cry­er col­lab­o­rat­ed with renowned chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Ken­ny Orte­ga just one night before shoot­ing this scene. The result of their labours gets an A+ for effort but is docked marks for exe­cu­tion as it’s real­ly more rhyth­mic stum­bling than dancing.

A Big­ger Splash isn’t the first time Ralph Fiennes has got his groove on. Fiennes exhibits his danc­ing ver­sa­til­i­ty as Count Lás­zló Almásy in this intense­ly roman­tic fox­trot. Fiennes and Scott Thomas required hours of rehearsal with chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Car­olyn Choa in order to cap­ture their char­ac­ters’ instant attrac­tion dur­ing this ball­room dance. Although the end result is tech­ni­cal­ly unshowy, the scene deliv­ers an affec­tive emo­tion­al punch.

Insis­tent on per­form­ing all the danc­ing her­self, Julia Stiles worked with Fati­ma Robin­son and Randy Dun­can, a hip-hop and bal­let chore­o­g­ra­ph­er respec­tive­ly, train­ing six hours a day for six weeks. Stiles’ per­se­ver­ance is reward­ed, her con­vinc­ing fusion of dances is the high­light of this clichéd chick flick.

Despite Audrey Hepburn’s pre­vi­ous bal­let expe­ri­ence she still required lengthy rehearsals with chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Eug­ine Lor­ing and her danc­ing and act­ing idol Fred Astaire in order to mas­ter this toe-tap­ping solo num­ber. Hepburn’s flu­id, infec­tious and sur­pris­ing­ly expres­sion­is­tic per­for­mance is sure to instil belief in even the most klutzy viewer.

With no pre­vi­ous danc­ing expe­ri­ence, Nick Frost went from com­plete novice to sal­sa king in Cuban Fury. Prac­tis­ing sev­en hours a day, every day for sev­en months, Frost sure­ly wins the award for most com­mit­ted. Frost for Strict­ly, anyone?

Con­tro­ver­sy lingers over how much of Natal­ie Portman’s dis­play is gen­uine and how much was per­formed by her dance dou­ble, Sarah Lane. Yet this real­ly shouldn’t detract from Portman’s efforts, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing she worked with bal­let teacher Mary Helen Bow­ers for five hours a day, six days a week for sev­er­al months pri­or to film­ing. Port­man even under­took toe exer­cis­es to hep strength­en her metatarsals for the demand­ing rou­tines in the film. Ele­gant and hyp­not­ic, this is bal­let at its most expres­sive and evocative.

Help­ing to pop­u­larise dis­co music around the world, John Travolta’s joy­ous hip-thrust­ing mas­ter­class to Bee Gees clas­sic ​‘You Should Be Danc­ing’ has only grown in stature over the years. Dance instruc­tor Deney Ter­rio and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Lester Wil­son helped train Tra­vol­ta for three hours a day over nine months. Addi­tion­al­ly, Tra­vol­ta ran two miles every day, shed­ding 20 pounds in the process. If Travolta’s suave, elec­tri­fy­ing dis­co fever doesn’t get you up on your feet then noth­ing will.

Which mem­o­rable danc­ing scenes have we missed? Let us know @LWLies