It's not easy being a monster or The dangers of suit acting.

[Spark Doll King]

Cheap, silly, lazy. Thats what often goes through the minds of people who look at old Godzilla movies like this. Just two guys rolling around in fake looking costumes. Hardly the master work of cinema. Well how would you feel if I told you the actor in the Godzilla suit, Haruo Nakajima, nearly died when he and the Kong actor were falling down a cliff in the films final scene.  Nakajima hit his head on the way down, knocking him out cold, and so when he landed in the tank below, he head first under water, in a heavy rubber suit. Only timely intervention from the crew prevented his downing.  This is but one of the many horrible accidents to befall the suit actor of giant monster movies, not to mention just how punishing the work was. 

Here's just a sample of what the actors went through.

During the making of the original Godzilla, Nakajima pasted out due to the weight of his suit and the heat that built up inside. He could only film for minutes at a time on occasion. The suit also didn't, had never would in any production, provide any protection from the pyrotechnics being fired at Godzilla. Nakajima described it as being feeling like "being pelted with rocks." Also another actor was electrocuted in the water tank due to poor cable insolation.

In Godzilla Raids Again, the Anguillas actor nearly drowned.

During the filming of Rodan, the cables used to suspend Nakajima in the air snapped. He fell 25 feet into the water tank below him, while wearing an already water logged, extra heavy, Rodan suit and had to be rescued.

As I mentioned poor Nakajima got knocked out and nearly drowned again in King Kong vs Godzilla.

During the making of Mothra vs Godzilla, Nakajima's suit caught fire thanks to the heavy use of pyrotechnics. 

Varan the Unbelievable has the worst incident of the lot. A model exploded underneath Nakajima as he was crawling along as Varan. The flames were so intense they ate right though the suit and burned his stomach & nether region. Importantly, this was the only time Nakajima actually went to hospital. All other times the man just continued performing.  

While not an accident in and of itself, the suit actor for Hedorah the Smog Monster suffered a burst appendix and was operated on while still in his suit.

During the filming of Godzilla vs Megalon, both the Gigan and Megalon suits caught fire.

Terror of Mechagodzilla actually contains such an accident in the film. The Godzilla suit was set alight and it looked so cool they left it in. 

In Godzilla vs Biollante, the wiring inside the Godzilla suit, there for the glowing spines, badly shocked the actor.

The suit for Mecha-King Ghidorah was so heavy is was deemed unsafe for a human to wear, forcing the production team to rework it into a puppet.

The Burning Godzilla suit used in Godzilla vs Destoroyah was a next level death trap. Not only were the electronics poorly insulated, resulting in lots of shocks, but the suit would also fill with the smoke/gas that was used to simulate Godzilla's high body temperature. The suit actor genially, and quite rightly, fear for his life while wearing it. 

Even in post 2000 films bad shit continued to happen. A Godzilla suit actor almost drowned when the rig supporting his suit malfunctioned, while another caught fire. 



Described as the only job were you turn up knowing you'll be blown up, suit acting is  incredibly taxing on it's performers. While steps have been taken to improve their comfort ever since the original Godzilla, it doesn't change the fact that these suits were heavy, hot and restrictive. This drastically increased the strain put on the people inside as they rolled around model suites, beating the crap out of eachother. They are also doing this with explosives strapped to them and fire works shot at them, which as I have already said, the suits did little to nothing to dull the pain of. On the flip side, they offered little protection when working in the freezing water of the pool sets used either.

It's not just the Godzilla actors though. It proves a merciless task what ever company you work for.



Not much is know about the actors for the original Gamera movies, in fact many go uncredited. What little that is known is that many of the suits used were heavy and near impossible to wear. The Gamera suit is reported to have been partly constructed from solid steel. Body builders were hired for the first film, and none of them lasted more then a day. In the end the production team had do it in order to finish the film. The only person who could last any time in the suit was Teruo Aragaki, who was known for playing kaiju in the Ultraman tv series. He somehow was able to wear the bloody thing for three films straight. Not much else is known but its seems highly likely, given how dangerous the suits were, that accidents must have occurred.

As of yet I've not heard of anything to bad occurring on the sets of Ultraman but we'll see.

Anyway I hope this as given you all an appreciation of the hard work that went into making Japanese monster movies.