Marlon Brando Acted Like a 'Monster' on Set of Epic 1996 Film Disaster – And You Won't Believe What He Did

By the time he showed up on the set of his 1996 film, Island of Dr. Moreau, Marlon Brando was well past his prime as an actor, and it showed. Morbidly obese, Brando tried to “sabotage” the film.

That’s according to screenwriter Ron Hutchinson, who called Brando a “monster” who seemed “hell-bent on sabotaging” the movie. According to The Guardian, the movie was about “a renegade scientist who creates an island of monsters,” but it ended up being “one of the legendary movie disasters of all time.” The movie ranks as “as one of the most notorious flops of the ’90s,” Slash Film reported.

Marlon Brando Showed Up on Set Weighing More Than 300 Pounds

According to Hutchinson, one issue was Brando’s weight. The acting legend showed up weighing about 300 pounds, The Guardian reported.

“Brando was only answering the door when the pizza man came. This was the best news that the pizza-makers of Cairns, this small town, had ever had because Brando was consuming industrial quantities of pizza while ruminating on what the hell he was going to do when he had to face the cameras. I think there might have been an existential terror there,” Hutchinson told The Guardian.

According to Far Out Magazine, there was a tragic reason for Brando’s troubles: “Brando had a fair excuse, with the suicide of his daughter, Cheyenne, causing him to retreat to his own private island,” but Val Kilmer, who co-starred, was also a problem. Terrible weather hit the set, and the lead actor, Rob Morrow, asked to be let go.

Marlon Brando Refused to Learn His Lines on the Set of the ‘Island of Dr. Moreau’

“Brando refused to learn his lines, so, instead, he was equipped with a small radio receiver that his assistant could use to feed him his lines,” Far Out Magazine noted.

“[Marlon would] be in the middle of a scene and suddenly he’d be picking up police messages and would repeat, ‘There’s a robbery at Woolworth’s,'” David Thewlis, an actor, told Far Out Magazine.

The way Brando looked was bizarre to say the least. “In his first scene, he imperiously arrives on the back of a truck, wrapped in white cloth and plastered in crudely applied makeup, wearing huge shades,” Slash Film reported. “Brando decided to do his own makeup, including dentures to give himself an overbite, and adopted a vague British accent for the role.”

FX Guide explains: “The actor refused to go to the make-up trailer but instead would apply his own make-up. This consisted of distinctive white face make-up, buck teeth and rubber gloves filled with baby powder – all techniques Brando had devised himself.”

Brando asked for everything from an ice bucket to wear as a hat to peacock feathers, Slash Film reported, and he refused to come out of his trailer before Kilmer.

It was, says FX Guide, “a deeply troubled production.” Brando’s last movie ever was a 2001 heist movie called The Score, so Island of Dr. Moreau wasn’t his final film. But it was certainly one of his weirdest.

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