Actress Olivia Wilde has grown numb to the physical pain she has endured during her Broadway production of 1984.
The Tron: Legacy star is currently featuring in the stage adaptation of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, opposite British actor Tom Sturridge as protagonist Winston Smith, who is brutally tortured after illegally falling in love with Wilde's character Julia.
The gig marks Wilde's Broadway debut, but she had no idea how much she would suffer for her art in the troubling play, which has disturbed some audience members so much, producers have since banned anyone under the age of 13 from attending.
Wilde previously broke her tailbone in previews for 1984, while she also later endured busting her lip open, but the mother-of-two insists she no longer feels the pain while in character, because she is so pumped up by the excitement of performing on the big stage.
"It's an intense story and it involves a lot of intense participation," she told The Associated Press. "Sometimes, it's been physically intense, but great. I don't feel the pain until we're offstage, anyway."
Sturridge has also been left battered and bruised by the production, even having his nose broken by Wilde, but the physicality of the play just adds to the adrenaline the stars feel as they act out life in a war-ravaged world.
"What is so exciting is to do a play which engenders such visceral reactions in an audience, be it people who are walking out, people passing out, people vomiting, people screaming out. Theatre should be that way," he said.
And he has no problem sustaining so many injuries as it's all in the name of art.
"It's a physical play, and we wanted to tell the story, go to the lengths that are required," Sturridge continued. "Sometimes that causes a little bit of pain."
1984, adapted and directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, officially opened at New York's Hudson Theatre on Thursday (22Jun17).
