Martin Sheen had a very intense and almost life-threatening experience during the filming of Apocalypse Now. He was dangerously drunk during the famous breakdown scene in the Saigon hotel room, actually cutting his hand on a mirror. The blood and emotional breakdown captured were real, not acted. During filming in the Philippines, Sheen suffered a massive heart attack that nearly killed him, collapsing in the jungle far from medical help. Despite this, he returned to the set within weeks, frail but determined to finish the movie. His struggle on set mirrored the film's themes of confrontation with inner demons and personal reckoning. Martin Sheen later described the experience as a spiritual awakening and said that watching the film years later, he didn't recognize the man he was at that time—"frightening" and wrestling with personal pain, addiction, and fear. The making of Apocalypse Now was not just a film project for him but a profound journey with physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges.