Ed Helms removed his actual tooth for role in The Hangover

Who could forget that iconic scene in The Hangover where Stu wakes up the morning after the night before and realises he's missing a tooth.

As viewers learn from throughout the movie, Zach Galifianakis' character Alan had bet Stu to pull out his own tooth in order prove he was an amazing dentist, and there's even photos to prove it.

At the end of the film, throwback snaps show Stu, covered in blood, yanking out his own tooth with a wrench.

Obviously, watching the movie at home, we simply assume that this was all acting - right?

Wrong.

It turns out that actor Ed Helms, who turns 50 on Wednesday (January 24), removed his actual tooth for the role.

It wasn't his real tooth, but actually an implant he'd had put in as a teenager. Still, that is some real dedication to your craft - and it sounds painful AF.

"It is totally real," Helms told PEOPLE back in 2009 at the time of the film's release.

"I have an implant. An adult tooth never came in and when I was 16, they did a permanent implant."

Warner Bros.

But why would he need to yank out his actual tooth?

Well, it turns out that the team started trying out different techniques, including prosthetics - but nothing was convincing enough.

"We started to do different tests with prosthetics and blacking it out and nothing worked," Helms continued.

"I wasn't eager to take out my implant because my mouth is healthy, but I talked to my dentist and he was like, 'Yeah we can do it!'

"My dentist was really into it."

Warner Bros.

If going to the dentist makes you queasy, then we apologise in advance for what you're about to read.

To make it possible, Helms' dentist apparently had to break the crown off and unscrew the post from the implant, leaving a huge hole in the gum.

Because the area has to stay healthy, the dentist then screwed in a piece that matched his gum tissue.

In massive dedication to the movie, Helms was actually toothless for three months while they shot the film, before getting a new implant once it was done.

However, Helms was also filming The Office while all this was happening, so he had to wear a retainer, which made some of his dialogue sound a little slurred.

If this isn't dedication, we don't know what is.