It happened to John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli in Lord of the Rings.
For his role, he had to wear special makeup made from prosthetics glued to the skin.
However, his skin was too sensitive for that. As soon as makeup was applied to him, he had an allergic reaction. He had irritations, blisters.
Every possible product was tried, nothing worked.
The skin on her face ended up being so irritated that shreds sometimes came off at the end of the day, when the makeup was removed… The fragile skin under the eyes was the most affected.
The situation became so problematic that John Rhys-Davies could no longer shoot every day. A special schedule was put in place, where he only filmed one day out of three, to give his skin time to recover.
But that wasn’t a solution. The actor was in constant pain.
His face being permanently red and irritated, he also did not feel comfortable in the company of the troupe members and, when he was not filming, he isolated himself.
At the end of filming, the make-up team solemnly gave him a copy of his Gimli “mask”, inviting him, if he wished, to throw it into the fire. What he did without being asked!
The experience of this filming was so traumatic for the actor that he refused to reprise his role in The Hobbit trilogy , for fear of having to go back to makeup.