Angelina Jolie is one tough cookie, on-screen and off. With her second directorial feature length motion picture effort "Unbroken" in the can with a theatrical release date for Dec. 25, the award-winning thespian is making headlines again for making one of the actors in the film "physically sick."

Based on the 2010 non-fiction novel of the same name by Laura Hillenbrand, the biographical war drama follows Olympic track and field athlete Louis Zamperini, who survived a plane crash over the Pacific, only to be imprisoned in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, where he spent two-and-a-half years.

According to IB Times, the 33-year-old Japanese singer-actor Miyavi, who portrays the sadistic POW camp guard and leader Sgt. Mutsuhiro Watanabe, was reduced to tears after filming an intense scene wherein he tortured the inmates.

Jolie, who directs and produces the film, encouraged Miyavi to immerse himself into the disposition of the Watanabe, a man hardened and desensitized by ultra-violence. The scenes resulted in the pop star-turned-actor sobbing and later, vomiting.

Sources close to The Independent said the actor, whose real name is Takamasa Ishihara, just "couldn't stop crying." 

"It was awful torture for me to hate the other actors -- I had to have hatred for them," he told Vanity Fair. "When I had to beat them, I had to think about protecting my family. At the same time, I didn't want to be just a bad guy. I wanted to put humanity in this role. [Matsuhiro] was both crazy and sadistic but also weak and traumatized.

According to actor, the story is "still painful" for his homeland of Japan.

"But she [Jolie] told me she wanted to make a bridge between all countries that had conflict," Miyavi continued. "She was very persuasive."

According to the NY Daily News, in the award-winning book, Zamperini refers to Watanabe as "The Bird," recounting how he derived sexual pleasure from beating detainees.

When it arrives Christmas Day, it shall compete against the Rob Marshall-directed musical fantasy film "Into The Woods," buddy comedy "The Interview," Ava DuVernay's "Selma,"  the Tim Burton-directed biographical drama "Big Eyes," and Clint Eastwood's biographical action flick "American Sniper" at the box office.

"Unrbroken" is Jolie's second film as a director.