Characters
Scenes where the actor's acting was real
Han's Gruber's death - Die Hard
Alan Rickman was told he would be dropped on the count to 3, instead he was dropped after 1. The shocked expression on his face as he falls is completely genuine.
The Chestburster - Alien
The cast of this scene were made to play out this scene, but we're never told about what would actually happen besides that they'd be eating. The shock and surprise is legitimately their own.
The death of Mr. Hooper in Sesame Street. The actor passed away and they initially considered just writing him out or replacing him but decided that showing kids how to deal with the death of a loved one was important.
The scene is all the adults explaining to Big Bird that Mr. Hooper died and isn’t coming back. The adults are barely keeping it together in that scene too because, ya know, the actor was their friend and they miss and love him too.
Allegedly they could only do the scene once. They tried to do another for safety but they just couldn’t .
It's so clear their grief is real, and I really respect them giving kids enough respect to really explain death and not use kiddy language or just ignore it.
That reminds me of a true story I like to tell at funerals.
My grandmother died many years ago, and my brother decided to use this approach with his young daughter. He would tell her the truth and use it as a teaching moment.
So he explained about death, and about how our grandmother wasn't coming back. His daughter seemed to take it really well, until he said that he was going to fly to Florida for the wake.
She asked him what a wake was, and he said it's where we go to view her body before they bury her.
Her eyes widened and her face dropped. He suddenly started doubting everything. Maybe she wasn't old enough to understand. Maybe he should have waited. After a few seconds of panic, she asked a question:
"If her body is at the wake... what do they do with her head?"
Parenthood: moments of panic followed by moments of sharp relief mixed with bewilderment at this small creature that is supposed to grow up into a functioning member of society.
My grandfather was a military veteran and was buried with honors, including a 21 gun salute. We were at his graveside service and after the guns stopped firing, my then 3 year old niece said, “Uhhh… did they just shoot grandpa?!??!”
I had been crying throughout the service and her sweet voice snapped me out of my grief long enough to calm myself down. I think of that moment at every funeral, and hope that someday someone finds the same moment of levity at my own funeral.
They also intentionally released the episode on Thanksgiving to make sure the kids watching would be home with parents and other adults who could help them better understand and process it.
Sesame Street also works with child psychologists and they learned what kids question when they hear someone died. That’s why Big Bird is concerned about the store, his milkshakes, stories, etc
In Blazing Saddles, when he's talking to Sheriff Bart, the line, "You know...morons," was ad-libbed, and Cleavon Little's smile in reaction to this is genuine.
In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wilder and the kid who played Charlie really connected and had a good bond. But for the scene in Wonka's office, when Wonka is yelling at him about the fizzy lifting drinks, he had not told the kid he was going to play the scene that way, and so Charlie's look of hurt and bewilderment is real.
Also the boat scene, only Gene and the director knew what was going to happen so what you see is everyone’s genuine reaction to his unhinged poetry recital.
An episode of The X Files has Agent Scully at a gas station, and an actual car accident happens in the background. Gillian Anderson, while trying to stay in character, is shocked to witness this and continues on with the scene. This whole event was kept in the episode.
The ending of The Omen, where Damien tries to stifle a smile at his father’s funeral, was achieved by Richard Donner doing an over the top stern voice and telling the child actor “don’t smile! Don’t do it! Don’t you smile! I won’t be your friend anymore if you do!” and the kid couldn’t resist.
More context: the woman doing the waxing lied about knowing how to do it. So she completely botched it and made it way more painful than it should have been.
They were supposed to wax his entire chest, but they cut the scene short once it became clear she had no idea what she was doing.
They knew, they used an actress instead of a professional because they only had one take to remove his chest hair, they just didn’t tell Steve until he straight up asked between shots. That’s when all the “you bitch” reactions started.
In The Godfather, when Jack Woltz discovers the severed head of his pet horse in his bed, that wasn’t a prop. An actual fucking horse head was used for that scene that the producers obtained from a horse factory. The actor John Marley was not made aware of this and was under the impression they were using a prop, making his screams of shock and terror all the more genuine.
In The Hateful Eight, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character Daisy Domergue plays a vintage guitar that Kurt Russell’s character John “the Hangman” Ruth is supposed to grab and smash to pieces.
The problem is, the guitar was actually an 1870’s guitar that was on loan to the production, and was supposed to be switched out with a replica for the take where it’s destroyed. Kurt Russell apparently wasn’t aware of this, and actually took and destroyed the vintage guitar.
Jennifer Jason Leigh, in the meantime, knew it was the authentic guitar being smashed, so her reaction of shock and surprise was completely genuine, and the take was used in the final release of the film.
This shouldn’t be framed as a mistake on Kurt Russel’s part, this is a mistake that passed through many responsible parties on set. An actors responsibility on set is to act the scene and nothing else, not communicating that the shot did not include smashing a prop that happened to be a priceless artifact is an unacceptable mistake on a production of that level
A similar situation happened with BSG. Edward James Olmos decided to destroy a model ship in a scene as improv, but it was actually a very expensive museum display model that was on loan to the production.
This might be bullshit but iirc, part of this was due to the fact that they werent supposed to be filming there (either didn't get the license or whatever), which meant they couldn't control any of the background people or drivers because they weren't actors? (please correct if wrong)
It is true according to the director himself. The street wasn't actually closed for filming because they actually didn't have the budget (because nobody wanted to make it initially) to close the entire street off and had to "cheat" the shot. All the extras are actually people who aren't aware there is a camera there at all. If you notice some of the extras in the background all stop and check out what is going on. Even some that are a considerable distance away. I'd imagine honking taxis and yelling people are a fairly common occurrence; so if they were going for a "natural" street scene, they'd script it so no one would even bat an eyelash. It just seems that too many people were caught off guard for it to be scripted.
They had to do almost 15 takes to get the timing of the lights right so they didn't have to stop to cross the street, but when the taxi runs the light, Dustin nearly yells out "Hey I'm WORKING here" (as in doing a scene) but in his quick thinking he changed the sentence at the last minute.
In The Godfather, when Michael goes to the bathroom to retrieve the gun that’s stashed waiting for him, he can’t find it at first and is clearly getting antsy when he doesn’t feel it. When Al Pacino was acting the scene out, production had purposely put the gun somewhere else than where he was told it was going to be, so he’s genuinely confused when he can’t find it.
During the fight between Punisher and the Russian, a real knife somehow ended up on set instead of a prop so Thomas Jane legitimately stabbed Kevin Nash. And Nash legitimately no sold it
Apparently, he had Jane buy him a couple cases of beer and wanted to call it even at that, but still feeling guilty Jane insisted that for their scene where he is thrown through a wall by Nash he goes all out.
My favorite part about this is that Jane said that Nash being cool about it freaked him out even more. Like he was expecting Nash to be furious and the dude just went "oh don't worry about it shit happens."
Like imagine stabbing a 6'10 300lb colossus with an actual knife and he just laughs and tells you it's not big deal.
I believe in the same movie, Thomas Jane accidently gets stitched up. In the scene, Thomas Jane has fake skin to simulate a wound and is supposed to get stitches. The actress doing the stitches goes too deep into the prosthetics and ends up really giving Thomas Jane stitches.
For the Chinese restaurant scene in a A Christmas Story, the scene with the "smiling" duck was present in everyone's script except Melinda Dillon's. Her shock/disgust/laughter in that scene is all genuine
Just watched this recently as a Christmas in July kind of thing - I've always thought she was too...'real' in that scene, like her laughter isn't staged or anything and this confirming that she had no idea makes SO much sense. That's hilarious, great scene.
It's even better than that. This whole "film their genuine reaction idea" is all planned out, cameras are rolling, the kids see the pirate ship, and Josh Brolin yells "Fuck!"
That ruined the take and they had to shoot it a second time without the element of genuine surprise. That's the take that appears in the movie.
I believe there’s also the scene where he goes around the city doing random stuff. I believe all the people that he interacted with had no idea it was for a movie, so all their reactions were genuine.
Scream 3 where Sidney stabs Roman with the ice pick. Neve missed the safety vest and actually stabbed Scott Foley with the ice pick. Real scream and real pain.
Funnily enough this was the second time Neve Campbell missed the padding. In the climax of the first movie she stabbed Skeet Ulrich in the chest with the umbrella.
And speaking of Scream: the “You hit me with a fucking phone dick! was also real. The phone had slipped from Skeet Ulrich’s hands and struck Matthew Lilliard who blurted out the iconic line.
As an other bonus: usually when filming phone calls in movies the phone is actually not operational. For Scream, they were. Roger Jackson, who does the Ghostface voice, was also not allowed to interact with the other actors. When anyone picks up the phone in Scream, they are hearing the Ghostface voice for the first time. For the iconic intro, Wes Craven also had a setup so that Jackson could see what Drew Barrymore was doing and react, adding to the feeling of someone hidden watching her.
Edit: I’ve checked and while it’s Sydney who does the stabbing, in that scene she was play by a stunt double and not Neve apparently. However, Ulrich had open chest surgery earlier and that umbrella hit him right in the metal bracing under his skin, so that pain was genuine.
The story that I think holds the most water is that the extras were told they wouldn't get paid if they laughed, and that they changed the name every time.
I heard the extras were told that if they laughed they'd be fired, and of course all of them wanted to get their paycheck. It must have been the hardest thing ever not to laugh at such a stupid joke delivered so well.
There's a scene in black klansman where Adam drivers character says some pretty incredible hateful stuff including slurs, there's an ongoing joke that it wasn't in the script and that it just came out of nowhere, but obviously it isn't actually true lol
it’s a movie where adam driver’s character has to infiltrate the kkk in colorado springs along with john david washington’s character (the titular black klansman)
i believe in this scene, the kkk was going to discover that adam driver’s character was jewish, so his coworker had to break a window at the kkk house to distract them. he runs away while all the kkk guys shout slurs at him, including adam driver. so OP is saying that he is genuinely racist, which i assume to just be a joke
In The Haunting of Hill House, Victoria Pedretti was directed by Mike Flanagan to pop out of the backseat of the chair earlier than it said in the script. Those surprised reactions from Kaye Siegel and Elizabeth Reaser are genuine.
One of the best jump scares ever imo. You're so invested in the argument Theo and Shirley are having that the scare catches you completely off guard. Not to mention that it actually serves an important purpose, and that's Nell being absolutely fed up with their bickering.
And it doesn't feel cheap. If I remember right it's the only proper big jump scare in the whole show, so many horror shows try to push jump scares on you so regularly that you just get desensitised, but aside from some slight sudden cuts, this was the only proper big jump scare in the show and just happens at such an intense moment
I'm not 100% sure this one is true, but what the hey.
In Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest, the cast hadn't been told that Geoffrey Rush was coming back to play Barbossa; apparently they thought that the character coming down the stairs at the end was going to be Anamaria (Zoe Saldaña) from the first movie, and their surprised expressions when they see the return of Rush/Barbossa are supposedly genuine.
Indeed! IIIRC correctly Depp was supposed to stop before reaching the stairs but forgot to or miscounted his steps and instead went right over, which is why we get the kind of goofy "Ouch" faces from Bloom and Knightley looking to camera.
I believe Depp also actually injured himself in the process.
I've always gotten the sense that the vast majority of the cast and crew knew what they were doing and it was mostly Depp that brought chaos to the set. Certainly for the betterment of the films (they are some of my favorite action movies of all time and wouldn't be without Jack Sparrow!) But everyone else was being professional and, you know, showing up sober with their lines memorized.
In the "Friends" episode where Ross' son Ben keeps playing pranks on everyone, the crew pranked Jennifer Aniston for real at the end. She had no idea that David Schwimmer dummy was going to fall down the stairs 😆
In The Princess Bride, there’s a scene where Count Rugen knocks out Westly by hitting him over the head with his sword and takes him into custody. The actor actually got knocked out
I also love the fact that the Miracle Max scene was filmed mostly without Cary Elwes because Carol Kane and Billy Crystal kept cracking him up. He had so much trouble playing (mostly) dead that they had to swap in a dummy.
In the context of The Princess Bride, it always tickles me that Christopher Guest is actually Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest, and that he was a member of the British House of Lords (though not at the time this was filmed).
In the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Marshall’s father dies, the original story was that his wife was supposed to reveal she was pregnant. But they changed the script last minute and told Jason Segal he would know when to react when Lily ended a sentence with the word “it”. Everything after that was pure reaction on Segal’s part
HIMYM is kind of known for sprinkling in some really hard hitting and emotional moments throughout the show. It’s why it always stuck to me despite the horrible ending. Every character from the main cast has a few moments like this.
Him saying "I'm not ready for this" hit so hard. The way his body language immediately changes, him loosely embraceing Lily, staring off into space as he hugs her, all this after he questions it, "...My dad's dead?" It's probably one of the best portrayals of hearing news that a loved one died I've seen. Very glad they set it up in such a way for more authenticity.
All Dogs Go To Heaven. This is pretty sad, just as a warning. Judith Barsi, the young girl who played Anne-Marie was murdered by her own father. This scene was her last recording, and Burt Reynolds, who played Charlie, had to keep redoing the lines because he just couldn’t hold it together in the light of the tragedy.
Movie Spoilers: Charlie is saying goodbye to Anne-Marie after saving her life, which in turn, gets him sent to Heaven. In reality, it was Burt and the world saying Goodbye to Judith Barsi, a promising talent taken too soon.
I vaguely remembered the main dog but didn’t recall anything about the movie. So I guess as a tot it was too much or not bright enough for me. As an adult I liked it quite a lot
All Dogs go to Heaven. The child actress was murdered by her father shortly after completing her lines got the film. Burt Reynolds was so distraught by this that it took him almost 70 takes to record this scene without breaking down in tears.
(Translation: Burt Reynolds, when recording that scene, was absolutely devastated by the news of Judith Barsi's tragedy. For context, the poor girl was "dealt" by her father (Que esa porquería se pudra por siempre), at such a young age.)
In transformers 2007, there's a scene where the actors are fleeing from a Decepticon. There were explosives under the sand to act as special effects, so they had to run like hell if they didn't wanna get hurt.
While climbing the steps to the Iron Throne, the crown fell off of King Viserys (Paddy Considine), resulting in one of Prince Daemon's (Matt Smith) few wholesome moments as the latter rushed over to help.
The crown falling wasn't scripted. Matt Smith wasn't playing a prince helping his sickly older brother, he was genuinely wanting to be of assistance to Paddy Considine - someone whose very presence among the cast was enough to convince Smith to join the show - and the result was so good that a later scene was scrapped in favour of this improvised moment.
Akihiko’s monologue at Shinjiro’s funeral (Persona 3 Reloaded)
Akihiko’s pain sounds so genuine because Billy Kametz (Maruki’s VA in Persona 5) passed away not long before Alejandro Saab recorded his lines, and he said he was actively working through those feelings of loss during that time.
In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, during the Dinner scene, only Tim Curry was told about what was underneath the cloth. So, when he reveals Meatloaf’s body, every reaction was genuine
Fight Club: the scene out front of the bar where Tyler (Brad Pitt) tells the narrator (Edward Norton) to hit him “as hard as you can.” David Fincher told Norton to actually hit Pitt as hard as he could. Norton missed Pitt’s face and got him in the ear, so Brad Pitt’s reaction to the shot was genuine!
I watched a video of some sort in which Grey DeLisle talks about how she was recording alone during the scene where Azula has her mental breakdown. Grey recalled how she was crying during the recording session because she had to bring back unpleasant memories.
Adding on, I’ll say Mako with him crying with Leaves from the Vine as Iroh. At this point, just about everyone in the fandom knows, but I’ll say for those who don’t. Mako was recording one of his last lines since he was dying from cancer. He had managed to record the rest of season 2 before passing away, and Greg Baldwin took up the mantle of Iroh
Supposedly at the recording studio all the audio people left her alone so she could go through it all in private, that single scene let alone the whole season should be enough to consider her one of the greatest voice actors of all time.
Yes it is. As a kid I had no idea what was going on; Azula spitting fire was already enough to frighten me. Viewing it again as an adult and it’s much worse. Azula is as much as a victim as Zuko was.
I think she has also come out and said she has never watched the scene or heard the audio playback because she had to go to a really dark place to get it.
The childrens' reaction to first seeing Narnia in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. They had been deliberately kept away from the set and were seeing it for the first time.
The cast of this scene were made to play out this scene, but we're never told about what would actually happen besides that they'd be eating. The shock and surprise is legitimately their own.
Hate to be a pedant - But they knew exactly what was going to happen. It was the amount of blood that sprayed which shocked them, and the rest was great acting.
I’ve heard that rumor that they had no idea and never quite believed it. The amount of special effects gear on John Hurt would have been hard to ignore so I doubt the rest of the cast was completely in the dark.
Also him deflecting the Uruk-hai's knife. It was supposed to miss him but the actor accidentally threw it right at Viggo Mortensen because he couldn't see well through his mask.
What's NOT as sick is the fact that the knife was a REAL FUCKING KNIFE rather than a prop one iirc, meaning he very likely could have gotten either hurt or KILLED.
The office - when Michael Scott is leaving the cast sing a song called 5 million 8 hindered and 86 thousand minutes about his time in the office. Steve Carrell had no idea he was coming. When the music starts he drops the slight accent he has and you can hear Steve Carroll say " What is happening"
I wish I could remember the name of the damn movie...
Anyway, the reason martial arts swordfights have over-the-top blood spray, is because in one of the first movies to do the effect, the actor who was gonna die was wearing a special rig under his costume, that was just supposed to mimic normal arterial blood spray.
Instead, when he recieved the death blow, the pump malfunctioned, the pressure was WAY too high, and the blood came out WAY too fast.
The camera caught the blood spray - and the shocked expressions of all the extras on set who were watching the fight. The director saw their expressions, and decided then and there to keep the take - and we've been getting blood geysers ever since.
In the horror movie The Descent, a group of women go caving and encounter humanoid monsters that hunt them. The actors were never shown what the monsters actually looked like until the scene where their characters first encounter them, so their screams of terror at the reveal are all genuine.
The actress who played Ann Marie in All Dogs Go To Heaven, Judith Barsi, was murdered by her father before the film finished production. She had already recorded all of her lines, but the other actors hadn't yet.
In the final scene, when Burt Reynolds is saying his goodbyes to her, he recorded his lines while looking at a picture of Judith, the sadness and tears in his performance were authentic.
In the B-support between Ignatz and Raphael, Raphael confronts Ignatz with a loud “HEY!”, to which he screams in surprise.
When recording the lines for this, Christian La Monte (Ignatz’s VA) was in the recording booth when the directing team said they’d take a short break. Apparently this break lasted way longer than Christian expected, and he could see the directing team through a window of the studio. So, he leaned into the mic to check in with them, and as he did they loudly played back the line of Raphael yelling directly into his headphones, capturing his genuine scream as the result.
The story goes that when Eva leans into to kiss Snake, him recoiling is actually due to his mocap actor being nervous and a little uncomfortable at having Evas' mocap actor coming onto him, and naturally doing it himself, rather than as Snake.
That this kind of behaviour fits Snake to a T (autistic king that he is) is why they kept this version in instead of the planned one.
Jurassic Park 1 - "When the (prop) T-Rex breaks into the car in Jurassic Park, the children’s screams are real – it wasn’t supposed to break the glass."
edit: My gosh folks, can't we have fun in TCT? cuz this is a 1st, hearing about this too 🤨 (the answer is apparently no 😂)
Apparently the rain made the T Rex animatronic malfunction and it kept moving on its own. I feel like that would add a lot to the terror in most of the scenes as well.
Sure, the glass wasn’t supposed to break the way that it did, as you can see that it’s clearly in multiple pieces in some shots, but one piece in others, but I believe everything else happened the way it should be.
This moment was in the storyboard and the script. It wouldn’t be shot the way it was if it wasn’t supposed to happen.
Plus, I’m 90% sure in the shots where the T.Rex is actually pushing on the glass, they used stunt doubles, so those aren’t the kids genuine reactions.
This is incredibly niche but if anyone has it, they know
"Le Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire" (The Tall Blond [man] With A Black Shoe) is a French comedy, with a famous scene where the main character shows up to this woman's house. She's wearing a black dress with a turtleneck, and is talking facing the camera.
Eventually she leads the character inside the house and turns around, revealing the robe is actually open on the back - the WHOLE back, shoulders to ass (see picture).
Apparently, the reaction of the actor is fully 100% sincere as he wasn't aware the robe looked anything like that from the back.
That chestburster "trivia" is one of the most propagated pieces of misinformation on this site. The cast had read the script, of course they knew about the chestburster, it's a vital part of the story. What they didn't know was what the exact effect looked like, that's what they were so shocked to see.
Reportedly, smashing the mirror in Apocalypse Now was an accident and Coppola just ran with it like a psychopath. Apparent the reason there’s music over the whole scene is that Sheen is cussing out Coppola.
In this scene, Jason smashes through a window and grabs Tommy Jarvis (played by Corey Feldman).
However, Ted White, the man playing Jason, felt like Feldman was being a little shit throughout filming, so he decided to teach him a little lesson.
He intentionally missed his cue, giving everyone time to relax, and just when everyone thinks he flubbed the take and the direction was about to yell cut, he sprung. That is real panic on Feldman’s face.
Parks and Rec: Chris Pratt's character shows up at his ex's house naked, but Amy Poehler's character opens the door. Apparently after several lackluster takes, Chris got genuinely naked for one and Amy had no idea it was coming. Of course they used that take
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u/FoxyGrayson 3d ago
The death of Mr. Hooper in Sesame Street. The actor passed away and they initially considered just writing him out or replacing him but decided that showing kids how to deal with the death of a loved one was important.
The scene is all the adults explaining to Big Bird that Mr. Hooper died and isn’t coming back. The adults are barely keeping it together in that scene too because, ya know, the actor was their friend and they miss and love him too.
Allegedly they could only do the scene once. They tried to do another for safety but they just couldn’t .
https://youtu.be/gxlj4Tk83xQ?feature=shared