Actors attempt to recite Shakespeare after eating super-hot chili peppers

What do you get when you combine hot peppers and Shakespeare? One interesting video.

For her new video series, #ChilliMonologues, director and photographer Rosie Collins brought together a brave group of actors to eat some super-hot peppers before reciting some of the Bard’s most famous lines.

The actors munched on a variety of peppers, including jalapeños, a Scotch bonnet, a ghost pepper and a Komodo Dragon chili.

The reactions to the dangerously hot peppers varied from actor to actor, but their pain was evident throughout their performances, with some crying and others guzzling milk to try to numb their suffering.

Collins said she was inspired to film actors doing something with chilies after learning that the Komodo Dragon pepper, Britain’s hottest commercially grown chili pepper, would be sold in the U.K.  

So why Shakespeare? According to Collins, it was “such an obvious fit” due to the reactions she was expecting from her actors after they ate the peppers.

“It started out as a bit of a joke, but it’s been really interesting watching how different people react to the chilies; how it affects their performance,” Collins told the Daily Mail. “Some of them really couldn’t handle it, and had to stop every other line to drink some milk, or cry or swear or laugh, but some others pulled out these amazing, intense performances without breaking eye contact with the camera.”