Jonah Hill was hospitalised by the fake cocaine he had to snort for his role in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’.
The 32-year-old actor played hard-partying stockbroker Donnie Azoff in the Golden Globe winning movie about the life of fraudulent trader Jordan Belfort – portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio.
For many scenes, he and DiCaprio had to take ‘coke’, which was replicated by the crew by using vitamin powder but Jonah inhaled so much he ended up developing bronchitis.
During an appearance on US talk show ‘Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons’, he revealed: "I had to be hospitalised. If you ingest that much matter into your lungs you’ll get very sick, and we were literally doing fake coke for, like, seven months, every day. I never had more vitamin D in my entire life; I could have lifted a car over my f***ing head!"
Jonah is playing another drug abuser, real life arms dealer Efraim Diveroli, in ‘War Dogs’.
And the actor-and-screenwriter has shared the secret to how he pretends to be high on screen – energy drinks and "chaotic" music.
He said: "It’s interesting pretending to be on drugs. I use music. I’ll make a playlist for every scene, so I’ll try to make, like, music that (made me feel) jittery and chaotic … and then just drink a ton of coffee and Red Bull."
In ‘War Dogs’, Jonah stars alongside Miles Teller as Miami-based friends Efraim and David Packouz who, during the Iraq War, exploit a little-known government initiative that allowed small businesses to bid on US military contracts.
They then land a $300 million contract to supply weapons to the America-allied Afghan armed forces with weapons and find themselves drawn into a world filled with shady and corrupt characters.
The movie is based on a true story and has been adapted from Guy Lawson’s Rolling Stone article and subsequent book ‘Arms and the Dudes’.