In the role of a superhero, these actors have to appear brave, strong-willed, highly skilled and are expected to act with honor. Then, once the cameras stop rolling, it’s back to reality. Sure, it might appear they have it all; money, fame, glory and a lifestyle others can only dream of but they have also had their share of some real personal demons.

See Also: 10 Outrageous Real Life Superheroes

For these following stars, they have all embodied the roles of their characters to much critical acclaim. Perhaps this is because when facing tougher scenes involving conflict and tragedy – they have had their fair share of heartbreaking experiences to draw from.

10 Mark Ruffalo

Mark Ruffalo has won over fans of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe ever since he first took on the role of Dr. Bruce Banner and his destructive alter-ego The Hulk in 2012. Like mild-mannered Bruce Banner has to face up to keep his rage under control, Ruffalo has also battled his own real-life horrors. In 2002, the actor had a benign brain tumor removed which left his face temporarily paralyzed.

Then on December 1, 2008, his brother Scott was shot in the head and killed at his L.A. home. The only key witness who was in the house at the time, Shaha Mishaal Adham, died of a drug overdose shortly after the incident and the case still remains unsolved. Speaking of the tragedy, Ruffalo said, “You never get over it; you just get used to it. You get calloused, a little bit harder maybe, so be on guard for that. But take these tragic things and turn them into something meaningful and worthy of the loss. Make it count.”^[1]

9Robert Downey Jr.

In 1996, Robert Downey Jr. was speeding down Sunset Boulevard when he was pulled over and arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, and a 357 Magnum handgun. After failing to show up for a court-ordered drug test, he was ordered to spend six months in the Los Angeles County jail. Following his release, he missed another drug test and this time spent three years back behind bars.

His career breakthrough came when he starred as the love interest of the main character in Ally McBeal. Then in 2008, he landed the role of Iron Man and the rest is Marvel history. He has won critical acclaim and praise of fans worldwide as the genius billionaire playboy and philanthropist, Tony Stark.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, he advised other addicts, “Job one is get out of that cave. A lot of people do get out but don’t change. So the thing is to get out and recognize the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal.”^[2]

8 Josh Brolin

Josh Brolin has portrayed Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018) yet he has had his own personal enemies to battle in his personal life too. Raised in California, he grew up with a lot of privileges as his father James Brolin had become famous for the tv series Marcus Welby MD, as well as a starring role in 1979’s The Amityville Horror. As a teenager, a young Brolin also found himself in the spotlight when he was cast as Brad in The Goonies (1985).

Then he became a member of a surfing gang called the Cito Rats and he began to see those he was close to fall victim to heroin addiction. He told The Guardian, “I tried heroin. That sounds so horrible when you put it like that. But yeah, I tried heroin. I mean, I never got into it and I never died from it, which is a good thing. I’ve had 19 friends who died. Most of those guys I grew up with, they’re all dead now.” It appears he just narrowly missed the Hollywood child star curse that strikes down so many.^[3]

7 Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy is known for his roles as the villain, including starring as Venom in the 2018 blockbuster, but his off-screen antics have also found him on the wrong side of the law. The British born actor was expelled from boarding school and he struggled with drink and drug problems throughout his teenage years. Arrested for stealing a car and gun possession, he finally checked into rehab to get sober after waking up from a binge covered in blood and vomit.

Now part of Hollywood’s A list stars, he has achieved great moments in his career yet his past is a constant reminder of just what obstacles he has had to overcome. Speaking with The Telegraph, he revealed, “I have all kinds of things from separation anxiety and abandonment. The loss of mother’s gaze at a certain age… the loss of a father figure… manhood… forgiveness… amendment. And recovery – natural recovery.” He added, “I spent a lot of days unhappy. So, yeah, it had its toll.”^[4]

6 Ben Affleck

Batman actor Ben Affleck, who appeared as the caped crusader in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017), has openly been in a battle with alcohol addiction since 2001. Affleck spoke publicly about his difficult childhood; growing up with his father’s drink dependency and his parents’ divorce. Since becoming one of the biggest names in Hollywood, Affleck gained a reputation for his hard partying ways and string of high profile failed relationships including his most recent; a divorce from actress Jennifer Garner with whom he has fathered three children.

The Academy Award winner opened up on social media and wrote, “As I’ve had to remind myself, if you have a problem, getting help is a sign of courage, not weakness or failure.” He revealed that he had completed a 40-day stay at a treatment center for alcohol addiction which had been a “lifelong and difficult struggle”.^[5]

5 Idris Elba

London-born actor Idris Elba is best known for his roles in The Wire and as Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Appearing as a tough guy on screen comes easy to him but his own personal life has been plagued by heartbreak. In 2010, he went public during a press conference that he had become a proud father for a second time to a newborn son. He gushed, “The celebration of having a son – from a man’s perspective, it’s massive.”

That celebration soon came to an end when he discovered via a paternity test that he was not the biological father. Elba said, “It wasn’t immediately obvious – well, it was, because he didn’t look like me. But it wasn’t immediately obvious what had gone down. To be given that and then have it taken away so harshly was like taking a full-on punch in the face.” Elba has since moved on with his life and became engaged to beauty queen and former Miss Vancouver Sabrina Dhowre in 2017.^[6]

4 Paul Bettany

Actor Paul Bettany had a notable acting career yet after suffering a few box office blows with poorly received films Transcendence (2014) and Mortdecai (2015), he thought his film career was over. The British actor was then snapped up by The Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon to play the role of Vision.

When he was 16-years-old, his younger brother died at the age of 8 in a freak accident that fractured his skull. Bettany then turned to drink and drugs to self-medicate himself through the painful loss. He said, “‘(It was) manic. I don’t know if I was aware I was numbing myself at the time. I don’t think (there was anger). It was nobody’s fault. It was the awfulness that is bad luck. Had there not been a heavy dew that morning.” He added that he now suffers from anxiety in raising his own two daughters he shares with his wife, actress Jennifer Connelly, explaining, “‘I am definitely feeling calmer on that but don’t think it will ever entirely leave. It’s an indelible worry.”^[7]

3 Samuel L. Jackson

Samuel L. Jackson is easily one of the most recognizable stars in the world, every year starring in a range of roles including Nick Fury in The Avengers. In the 1950s, he grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during segregation and he revealed he got through the hard times because he was “a good fighter and a smart kid.”

Jackson also said, “Like many young people I faced lots of barriers. They included growing up in a segregated southern state of America. I faced racism during my whole adolescence.” He added, “On the other hand, the best advice that was given to me was that I had to be 10 times smarter, braver and more polite just to be equal. So I did. Eventually my dream of becoming an actor became a reality, which is always bigger.”

In the early 1970s, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, to study marine biology but after joining an acting group he decided to take a different path in life and the rest is Hollywood history.^[8]

2Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson is celebrated as one of the most talented and beautiful actresses in the world but she has also suffered hardships growing up. Born in New York, she grew up in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village as one of five children and her parents are of Danish-Polish descent. She admitted that her family had “little money” and that they relied on welfare to put food on the table.

In 1998, she landed her big break in The Horse Whisperer and later in her career became a household name as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Most recently, Johansson has been active in many charity campaigns including Feeding America which is a relief organization that aims to help the 1 in 8 people struggling with hunger in the U.S. Drawing on her own experiences of child hunger, she revealed, “My family grew up relying on public assistance to help provide meals for our family. Child hunger in America is a real and often overlooked problem, but one that together, we can fix.”^[9]

1 Chris Pratt

Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt became a household name with credit to his portrayal of Peter Quill. The Minnesota-born actor admitted he struggled on his journey to becoming one of the most lovable stars in Hollywood as he was once homeless and living in a van. After graduating from high school, Pratt left college following just one semester when he began working as an amateur stripper charging $40.

Aged 19-years-old, he waited tables in Maui, Hawaii, for minimum-wage pay and lived in his van. He also confessed to eating leftover food off customer’s plates to feed himself. Then in a chance encounter, he met actress and director Rae Dawn Chong who cast him in her short comedy horror ‘Cursed Part 3.’ Pratt recalled, “The moment (Chong) told me she was bringing me to L.A., I knew. I was like, ‘This is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.” The movie was a flop and never released but it didn’t stop Pratt recognizing that acting is what he wanted to do with his life. In 2018, it was revealed that his role in Jurassic World as Owen netted him a $10 million pay day.^[10]

By default, superheroes are the good guys. They’re wish fulfillment characters who exist to save the day and put the villains in prison (or Arkham Asylum) until the bad guys escape again and the circle starts anew. Sure, it’s not the ideal solution, but what can you do? It’s not like the superheroes can just kill their opponents.

Except, that is, when they do just that. There have been times when even the most goody-two-shoes superhero has had enough and straight up killed their dastardly supervillains. Here are some of the most shocking occasions. 

10. Batman has actually killed a whole bunch of people

Batman’s “no-kill rule” is one of the defining traits of the character. However, even if the reader manages to suspend the disbelief of a large martial artist in a battle suit ruthlessly punching criminals for years and never even accidentally killing one, the whole “Batman doesn’t kill” thing doesn’t quite hold water… because Batman has absolutely killed lots of villains, and had no trouble doing it with any means necessary. He even used guns, something he aggressively shies away from in most modern comics.  

In his very first appearance in 1939, the Caped Crusader killed a bad guy by kicking him in a vat full of acid, and even gave him a James Bond quip as he died, no doubt agonizingly. Sure, that one has since been retconned into the origin story of the Joker, but a couple of issues later, he killed the first member of his Rogue’s Gallery — Doctor Death — by straight up trapping him inside a building that was on fire. Again, Batman sent his foe away with a one-liner: “Death to Doctor Death.”  In the very next issue, he snapped a guy’s neck, and when he eventually got his own title, he promptly hanged a villain called Monster Man from his Batcopter. He only got more family-friendly in 1941, when the “moral climate” changed and the writers decided to tone down the superhero’s impressive death toll.

9. The Sentry rips Ares in half

Sentry is basically Marvel’s take on Superman, but despite (or maybe, because of) this, he also comes with a whole host of mental issues, up to and very much including an evil, all-destroying persona known as the Void. This makes him a fairly volatile opponent at the best of times, because there’s no way of knowing just where the Sentry’s mind is this particular Wednesday. 

During the Siege event, the Marvel comic universe’s resident war god Ares found this out the hard way when he was fighting a Norman Osborn-led incarnation of Avengers in Asgard. When Ares threatened Osborn, he was promptly attacked by the Sentry. The ensuing battle between the two powerful figures was extremely one-sided, as the unspeaking Sentry calmly manhandled Ares all over the area. However, he wasn’t content with just beating Ares: the superhero picked up the war god and ripped the poor dude in half with his own two hands. Ouch. 

8. Wolverine kills an evil Hulk

Wolverine and Hulk have battled a good few times over the years, and while the matchup between a small, angry Canuck with knives for fists and arguably the strongest creature on Earth might seem like an unfair one, Wolverine is notoriously the best at what he does… and sometimes, what he does is killing Hulk.

In the Old Man Logan comic’s King of Nothing storyline, an elderly Wolverine with malfunctioning powers finds himself in hot water when he faces Maestro, an evil Hulk from another dimension. It seems that this scenario would favor Wolverine even less than usual, especially as Maestro had already slapped him around so badly that it took him a week to heal (which is saying something, considering Wolverine usually shrugs off pretty much any damage you can throw at him). However, in their next encounter, it’s actually Maestro who ends up worse for wear. At this point, Old Man Logan has had enough of Evil Hulk’s shenanigans, so he simply cuts the big green guy’s head off. Guess that’s one way to keep the opponent from getting up.

7. Ant-Man bites the Blob’s head off

Some say that the Ultimatum storyline of 2009 was among the lowest points in comic book history, and fans of Ant-Man would likely agree. After all, who wants to see their favorite superhero bite off a supervillain’s head? 

At one point of the Ultimatum event, the Ultimates (basically a gritty reimagining of the Avengers) ran afoul of the mutant supervillain Blob. Unfortunately, the Blob had already found group member Wasp, and was happily munching on her lifeless body. While this is gruesome on its own, what followed took things to the next level: Henry Pym’s Ant-Man, who was in Giant-Man mode at the time, was less than thrilled to see his wife both dead and being eaten. So he grabbed the Blob, lifted him off the ground… and in uncomfortably graphic detail, bites the villain’s head off and spits it out. Yes, really. Did we mention that fans didn’t particularly enjoy Ultimatum?  

6. The New Warriors’ battle with a supervillain kills the villain, explodes a small town

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Civil War event is jump-started by an Avengers mission gone wrong, but the comic version actually focused on an obscure team known as the New Warriors. 

The Warriors were a C-list superhero group that had resorted to starring in a Cops-style reality TV show. During a televised battle with a bunch of similarly low-rated supervillains in the small town of Stamford, Connecticut, the heroes discover during the battle that one of the bad guys is Nitro, who is essentially a walking bomb and significantly more powerful than anyone else at the scene. When attacked by the hero Namorita, Nitro lashes back with his own powers… and wipes away both teams, along with hundreds of civilians (including the students of a nearby school).

Sure, technically it was Nitro who killed everyone here, but since the rest of the villain’s team also died and Nitro only activated his powers because of the New Warriors’ stupidly brash decision to confront the supervillains in a populated suburban area, the heroes totally qualify as killers here, too.  

5. Green Lanterns have a special move for murder

Green Lanterns aren’t afraid to use the significant might of their power rings to kill people when needed. However, some of the more famous Lanterns like to dispose their villains in a much more personal manner: Oddly, Earth Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart have both killed a man by physically snapping his neck.

Jordan’s neck snap moment came in 1994, and the situation was a bit more complex than you’d expect: The grieving, out-of-control Green Lantern was technically the bad guy here, and the Guardians of the Universe revived his worst enemy Sinestro to stop his rampage. Their ring-on-ring battle eventually degraded into a physical fight, which Sinestro fatally lost when Jordan grabbed him in a headlock and killed him. Stewart’s case, on the other hand, was a lot more tragic: He was forced to snap the neck of his fellow Lantern when they were interrogated and he feared his comrade was about to break. 

4. The X-Men kill their villains all the time

Many of the X-Men have powers that are deadly in the wrong hands, and occasionally, said wrong hands are their own. Joining Wolverine’s rogue’s gallery is obviously a pretty good way for a villain to get stabbed, but the other X-people are no slouches, either. 

Thanks to his optic blasts, Cyclops can end lives with just a quick glance, which is precisely what he has done to villains such as Donald Pierce, Berzerker, Candra and Mister Sinister (who eventually got better). The metal-skinned Colossus isn’t above killing the occasional bad guy either, as discovered first hand by Riptide and Proteus. Team members such as Rogue, Storm, Archangel, Bishop, Jean Grey and even the good-natured Iceman have also fatally used their powers against a villainous opponent at one time or another. 

3. Spider-Man has a lot of lives on his conscience

Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man doesn’t seem like the kind of superhero who’d kill, but his presence on this list proves otherwise. However, to keep his hands comparatively clean, the writers tend to make the villains he physically kills zombies, robot duplicates and the like, while the sentient flesh-and-blood villains tend to meet their fates when Spider-Man positions them in the way that someone else will pull the trigger, or the villain’s missiles will return back to him, or some other ambient effect will take care of them. 

Still, there are at least two times when Spidey has actually, personally killed a villain. One was D-list bad guy Modular Man, who he shocked to death with an electric gauntlet. Another, vastly more gruesome one was Morlun, a spider-person hunting super vampire who wanted to drink Spidey’s blood. Spider-Man managed to turn the tables on the villain when he developed a new spider-fang power (long story)… and fatally bit into Morlun’s throat instead. Plot twist!

2. The Flash has killed tons of his enemies

The Flash has a reputation as a goofy, fun-loving guy, but don’t let his easy-going demeanor fool you for one second — the speedster actually has one of the highest superhero body counts out there. Apart from the superheroes and assorted collateral, the various incarnations of the Flash have killed enough supervillains that he should be more feared among the criminal element than Batman. 

The Top, King Shark, Mirror Master, Gorilla Grodd, Savitar and the Reverse-Flash have all met their ends at the hands of some version of the Flash — sometimes by accident, occasionally on purpose. Once, Barry Allen eradicated a species of sentient cloud creatures simply because he was preoccupied by a date he was supposed to be on. Another time, he teamed up with Wally West’s Flash to take down Darkseid and ended up killing the Black Flash, who is a speed-themed incarnation of death itself. Oh, and there’s also the time when Allen’s Flash became said incarnation of death. Wait, how does he get to do all that and still qualify as a hero? 

1. Yes, even Superman

Live action versions of Superman are surprisingly fine with killing their enemies, but the comic book version usually has a little more chill. However, sometimes even the Man of Steel decides that enough is enough and takes out a villain. Assorted comic book versions of Superman have killed villains such as General Zod, Mister Mxyzptlk, Brainiac and Doomsday (though to be fair, he was only returning the favor with that one since Doomsday had already killed him once). 

However, arguably the most famous of Superman’s comic book villain slayings came in the Injustice series, where he took down none other than the Joker — something even Batman has been able to resist doing all these years. In this story, the Joker attempted to give Superman his classic “everyone’s just one bad day away from becoming like me” treatment. After shooting Superman’s friend Jimmy Olsen and kidnapping the hero’s pregnant wife, Lois Lane, the Clown Prince of Crime drugged Superman and fooled him into thinking that Lane was the dangerous villain Doomsday. Reflexively, Superman flies “Doomsday” into space, only to come to and discover he’s just killed his wife and unborn child… as well as nuked the city of Metropolis, courtesy of a trap trigger that activated when Lane died. 

At this point, Superman finally had enough. In full sight of Batman, he punches right through the Joker’s chest in rage. Then, in a doomed effort to ensure that no one has to suffer like this ever again, he inadvertently becomes the Earth’s feared dictator. The Joker would probably argue that he proved his point — if it wasn’t for that fist-sized hole in his chest.