Sometimes so much effort goes into making a Movie, it isn't enough to just watch it over and over again. To truly appreciate it, you have to know the details about how it was made.

In order to better understan filmmaking, Reddit user Crying_Hyena submitted a question to the platform, asking "What's the greatest movie 'behind-the-scenes' fact you know?"

And if there's one thing cinephiles love more than gathering trivia on their favorite productions, it's sharing it.

People immediately started responding to the post, sharing interesting lesser-known facts about movies of all genres. From Fight Club to The Room, continue scrolling and check out some of the most upvoted entries!

#1

While filming Total Recall, Schwarzenegger noticed the Michael Ironside was constantly on the phone between takes. When he broached the subject with Ironside, he was told the he was phoning his sister and that she was currently suffering from cancer. Arnold immediately brought Michael to his trailer and they had an hour long 3 way conversation with the sister about what exercises to do and what kinds of foods she should be eating and really lifting her spirits. Ironside has never forgotten Schwarzenegger's kindness and neither has his sister.

Image credits: theboyd1986

#2

While filming Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Bella, the Neapolitan mastiff that played Fang, got very protective of Daniel Radcliffe, and would jump in front of him whenever the animatronic spider for Aragog would come out to defend him, resulting in then having to refilm the scene multiple times.

Image credits: addytude529

#3

While looking for a tattered coat for the character playing The Wizard in the Wizard of Oz, a costume assistant bought one from a second hand store. When the actor put the coat on he turned the pocket inside out - written in the pocket was the name L.Frank Baum who is the author of The Wizard of Oz books. Baum's widow later identified the coat as actually having belonged to her husband

Image credits: Naweezy

#4

In Scrubs the Janitor almost never read his script and just improvised his role. Bill Lawrence actually said that in the scripts, he had "whatever Neil says" on his lines.

Image credits: YouKnowIDoWhatIDo

#5

During the filming of the Lord of the Rings, Christopher Lee corrected Peter Jackson on the sound of being stabbed in the back.

From the DVD commentary:

"When I was shooting the stabbing shot with Christopher, as a director would I was explaining to him what he should do"... "And he says, 'Peter, have you ever heard the sound a man makes when he’s stabbed in the back?' And I said, 'Um, no.' And he says 'Well, I have, and I know what to do.' ""

He had been involved in some super secret operations for the British during WWII, which is presumably where he knew that from.

Image credits: rognvaldr

#6

In Life of Brian, the line after "yes, we're all individuals", "I'm not!" was ad-libbed, bumping the extra up in pay for now having a distinct speaking role.

Image credits: IAMA_dragon-AMA

#7

The actors of Saving Private Ryan were put through basic training before filming, EXCEPT Matt Damon so that the other actors would build some sort of unconscious resentment towards his character

Image credits: Naweezy

#8

In Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Aragon, Gimli, and Legolas are approaching the pile of smoldering and dismembered corpses looking for Pipin and Mary, Vigo Mortensen kicks a helmeted Orc head and screams, thinking the hobbits are dead and gone.

It's a really good scream and 100% authentic. When Mortensen kicked the head/helmet he broke two of his toes. He used the pain and stayed in character. They kept the scene for the movie.

Image credits: UCMCoyote

#9

When Coppola and Lucas (close friends and filmmaking buddies) were planning Apocalypse Now (which George Lucas was originally supposed to direct) they gave a small role to their carpenter, Harrison Ford, in return for Ford's work on a desk for Coppola's office. Ford also got a role in Lucas' American Graffiti a few years prior this same way.

During the casting for Star Wars, Lucas needed someone to read Han Solo's lines while actor's auditioned for Luke. He quickly asked Ford to do it, and afterwards, one of the producers there came up to Lucas and pointed out that he already had his Han Solo in Ford. (Thus beating out Kurt Russell for the role).

Image credits: Awesomekip

#10

Fight Club was filmed in chronological order, and throughout the filming Edward Norton put himself on a near-starvation diet and avoided the sun, while Brad Pitt spent a lot of time at the gym and in tanning salons. The end result is we see Tyler Durden getting stronger and healthier while the narrator withers away.

Image credits: GrinningPariah

#11

One of my favorites is from Predator

"Jesse Ventura was delighted to find out from the wardrobe department that his arms were 1" bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger's. He suggested to Schwarzenegger that they measure arms, with the winner getting a bottle of champagne. Ventura lost because Schwarzenegger had told the wardrobe department to tell Ventura that his arms were bigger."

Image credits: Bortjort

#12

In The Shawshank Redemption, there's a scene where a guy feeds a maggot to a crow.

The American Humane Association made them find a maggot that had died of natural causes to feed to the crow. They wouldn't have given the "no animals were harmed in the making of this film" at the end if they hadn't.

Image credits: Noah-R

#13

While filming Guardians of the Galaxy, they had to do several takes of some scenes because Chris Pratt kept making the pew pew sounds when he fired his raygun.

Image credits: PetevonPete

#14

Don't know if it's that great, but it's my favourite:

In the Dark Knight, whenever The Joker is leaving the hospital as it explodes and then pauses to fiddle with the detonator when the explosions stop, that wasn't supposed to happen and Heath Ledger fiddling with the detonator was ad libbed and Nolan decided to keep rolling and include it in the film

Image credits: Tote_Sport

#15

Apparently the scientists for Interstellar did so much theoretical physics to get the wormhole and black hole effects right that their work is going to be published into a scientific paper. Can't find a source on that right now though.

Image credits: ttothesecond

#16

I like the one about Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy shoots the sword fighter. He was supposed to fight him in a shoot that would've taken 3 days. However Ford was really sick from dysentery and so convinced Spielberg to do it this way.

Image credits: PainMatrix

#17

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the snakes, being cold-blooded, went towards the thrown torch, causing the director to complain at the snakes, "you're ruining my movie!"

Image credits: IAMA_dragon-AMA

#18

Monty Python's Life of Brian stirred so much controversy that production company EMC pulled the funding just days before filming was set to begin.

George Harrison heard about this and paid for the entire production of the film with his own money.

#19

In Requiem for a Dream, there is a scene where Ellen Burnstyn gives a monologue about how terrible it is to grow old and useless (a scene credited for her Best Actress nomination). Unlike the rest of the movie where every shot is very carefully planned and framed, the camera here goes all shakey and off center.

This was not planned or intended, and director Darren Aronofsky started to throw a fit as soon as the scene was cut, because Ellen Burnstyn had just delivered an amazing performance and the cinematographer had screwed it all up.

As it turns out, the filming was screwed up because the cinematographer was so moved by Burnstyn's performance that he was crying uncontrollably - he couldn't hold the camera still, and couldn't see because his crying fogged up the eyepiece.

They used that cut in the final film.

#20

In avengers, Robert Downey Jr would hide food around the sets and eat them while filming. The crew would attempt to find his stashes but never(?) did. All those times he was eating on screen were unscripted.

#21

The big reveal that Darth Vader is Luke's father was a crazily guarded secret--even the actor who played Vader didn't know. As most people know, Vader's body was played by David Prowse, and his voice was James Earl Jones. During filming though, Prowse did say his lines. During that scene, what he actually says is "Obi-Wan killed your father." Hamill was only told moments before what the actual line was going to wind up being and none of the other actors knew--no one knew except Lucas, the director, and some producers.

Image credits: acydetchx

#22

In Goodfellas, the spaghetti they're eating was cooked by Scorsese's mother.

Image credits: HoboChique

#23

In the flower shop scene in "The Room", when Johnny says "oh hi, doggy", that was a genuine reaction. He didn't realize that the dog was - in his own words - "a real thing".

Image credits: DuckfatPopcorn

#24

In Anchorman, during the Sex Panther scene, Paul Rudd was determined to make Will Ferrell laugh and break character since it was always the other way around. He thought that this would be accomplished with the "60% of the time it works, every time" line. Will fired back with "that doesn't even make sense" line without skipping a beat once again making Paul/Others break character yet again.

Image credits: unknown

#25

This is a smaller one than the plethora of LOTR info already here, but still one of my favorites:

In the movie "The Holiday", there is a scene in a video rental store where Miles (Jack Black) is introducing Iris (Kate Winslet) to a variety of famous music from movies - Chariots of Fire, Gone With The Wind, etc. When he gets to "The Graduate", he starts singing "Mrs. Robinson", and the camera cuts over to Dustin Hoffman, shaking his head at their conversation.

Dustin Hoffman's cameo was completely unplanned - he knew the director, saw a bunch of equipment at the Blockbuster, stopped in to say hi, and they wrote his cameo in on the spot.

#26

Three people were struck by lightning during the filming of The Passion of The Christ.

Image credits: thehonestyfish

#27

In Django Unchained, when DiCaprio finally snaps and starts slamming on the table, his hand starts to bleed profusely. The blood was real because he shattered a glass when he slammed his hand down, but he kept going with it.

I like to think it's still his blood when he rubs it all over Broomhilda's face, but I really doubt it.

#28

William Friedkin had a shotgun with blank shells that he'd shoot off on the sound stage during breaks, while filming The Exorcist. It scared the daylights out of everybody, and after a few times he was asked to stop. The actors didn't find it funny. What they didn't know was that their reactions were being filmed - and later inserted into the movie as their reaction when Regan made a sound upstairs.

Image credits: Scrappy_Larue

#29

In Hitchcock's Rope, which is composed of just a few very long takes, the dollycam (which is extremely heavy and on rails) ran over a crewmember's foot, breaking it. This was pretty deep into a good take from what I recall, so another stagehand just covered his mouth and dragged him off set rather than let his screams of pain ruin a lot of work.

Image credits: rasputin777

#30

During the dream sequence in The Big Leboswki, Jeff Bridges is 'bowled' along the floor and comes to rest with his head between a standing cheerleader's legs, staring up at her personal area.

He breaks out in a huge grin - which is genuine and totally unscripted. This is because the girl in question was supplied with an elaborate pubic hair wig (or merkin, if you want to be technical) by the Coen brothers without Bridges being informed.

#31

During the shooting for "Armour of God", Jackie Chan cracked his skull during a stunt, while attempting to fall on a tree branch but missing it completely. He still has a hole in his skull to this day. Actually, his whole life story is a treasure troves of injuries/near-deaths.

#32

During the filming of The Princess Bride, Mandy Patankin's (Inigo Montoya) father died from cancer. When he came back from the funeral, they had to shoot the scene where he kills the six fingered man. It gives him a special fire in his eyes when he says "I want my father back, you son of a b*tch".

#33

When Andy Dwyer shows up at Ann's house naked in Parks and Rec, Chris Pratt is actually nude.

That is Amy Pohler's actual reaction.

Image credits: vanoreo

#34

An actual robber was fleeing a drug store (or some such similar establishment) and turned the corner onto the set of the finale of Leon (The Professional), in which Leon's building is completely surrounded by cops. Upon seeing an army of actors dressed as policemen, the robber immediately surrendered.

#35

The movie Field of Dreams was based on the book Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella. Throughout the entirety of the production, they had planned to call it Shoeless Joe. After the movie was shot and edited, the producers showed it to a focus group who loved everything about it except the name. They thought it sounded like a movie about a homeless guy. So the producers changed it to Field of Dreams and told the director, Phil Robinson.

Robinson was horrified and considered it the worst type of corporate business meddling. He vowed to fight them on this, and his first step was to get W. P. Kinsella to argue on his side. He made a phone call and mentioned the name change. Before he could give more details, Kinsella interrupted and said, "Oh, Shoeless Joe was my publisher's title. I wanted to call it Dream Field."

#36

The movie "Wayne's World" was filmed in less than a month, because the equipment was all borrowed from someone else.
Also, Dana Carvey actually didn't know the lyrics to the Bohemian Rhapsody. He just mouthed along as the scene was shot.

#37

You know in Breaking Bad when Walt throws a pizza on the roof?

Bryan Cranston nailed that toss on the first take.

#38

When Back to the Future was released, Calvin Klein was a relatively obscure brand outside of the U.S.

If you switch your DVD to French, Lorainne calls Marty "Pierre" for most of the movie, after seeing Pierre Cardin printed on his shorts.

#39

Apparently Ronald Reagan was amused by Doc Brown's disbelief that an actor like him could become president, so much so that he had the projectionist stop and replay the scene. He also seemed to enjoy it so much that he even made a direct reference of the film in his 1986 State of the Union address: "As they said in the film "Back to the Future", 'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'"

Image credits: elee0228

#40

During filming of The Godfather, Marlon Brando stayed in character a lot but was still a prankster on set. in one scene characters are supposed to pick up bags from a car, so Brando put a bunch of weights in them and didnt tell anyone until they were struggling to pick them up on camera.
Brad Pitt apparently is too, during the filming of Moneyball Jonah Hill liked to ride a special golf cart around set so Pitt stole it one day and had it painted pink, "Jonah loves WHAM!" written on the windshield with a little picture of them photoshopped onto a pic of Wham and rigged the radio to blast "Wake me up before you go-go"

#41

There Will be Blood: While on location in Marfa, Texas, No Country for Old Men (2007) was the neighboring film production. One day, Paul Thomas Anderson and his crew tested the pyrotechnical effects of the oil derrick fire, causing an enormous billowing of smoke, intruding the shot that Joel Coen and Ethan Coen were shooting. This caused them to delay filming until the next day when the smoke dissipated.

#42

Darth vader sounded dorky without the effects. The sound of his breathing was created by Ben Burt, the sound designer of Darth Vader, by breathing into a scuba regulator. The sound of a lightsaber was that of an idle projector and the blaster effect was created by hitting a guy wire on a radio tower with a hammer.

#43

District 9 was almost completely unscripted. They had the story plotted out, but when it came to shooting scenes, they would just sort of wing it. Sharlto Copley, the star, had never really acted before. He was a TV producer who Neill Blomkamp worked for as a teenager.

#44

In Apollo 13, they filmed in NASA's "vomit comet", a plane that flew at high altitudes and would create parabola movements to simulate a short period of low gravity. They built the Apollo spacecraft set inside the plane and almost every scene featuring zero gravity was filmed in the plane. They flew over 500 times in the parabola. From the time that low gravity simulation would start, they would only have 23 seconds to unstrap from restraints, set up a shot, roll, and then strap back in. They completed all of these flights in 13 days. THE MOST UNDERRATED MOVIE FACT OF ALL TIME! The only movie ever to film in actual Zero Gravity.

#45

In the original Alien, none of the actors knew what was going to happen in the chest burst scene. Their reactions are all genuine.

#46

In Alien Resurrection, Sigourney Weaver really did make that no look, over the shoulder basketball shot. Ron Perlman almost blew the take because he was so surprised!

#47

In A Knight's Tale, the scene where Mark Addy says "Yayyyy" because the audience gives no reaction to Chaucer was improvised by Addy because the extras didn't speak English (they were Eastern Europeans) and had no idea when to cheer.

Image credits: unknown

#48

The famous scene of Vito Corleone holding a cat was not scripted. He just found a cat.

#49

The only thing in the Chocolate Room that wasn't edible was the teacup Wonka eats. That was wax. Gene Wilder still ate it for the shot.

The chocolate river was made of water, cocoa and shampoo, so it would foam right, but it's also only a foot deep. They had to dig a hole where Augustus falls in and hope he doesn't break his neck.

And it took fifteen takes to get the Oompa Loompas to roll Violet out the door. Only two of them spoke English, and Violet was wider than they are tall. They kept rolling her head into the metal doorframe.

The one you've heard is that Gene Wilder planned the little stumblesault when he arrives, but he also didn't tell anyone about the hallucination scene. The kids actually thought he went mad, since their scripts didn't include the scene.

#50

ET's voice is the actual voice of a female chain smoker.

#51

Blade Runner... OK a few bits not just one.

• At the end of the movie the dove was shot in the morning sky. This happened because the studio time was down to the wire and they were running out of time to complete the shots. It was either that scene or none at all.

• The model of the Tyrell Corporation(opening scene) burned down because the techs left the model lights on. By the time they noticed it was too late to save it.

• Philip K. Dick only saw the first 20 minutes of the movie. He died March 2, 1982.

• The first cut ran around four hours...maybe someday we may get to see it. :)

#52

I think it was in the Shining, the kid didn't know they were making a horror movie.

Image credits: TheRealMouseRat

#53

The infamous line said by Barkhad Abdi, "I'm the captain now" in the movie Captain Phillips was actually improvised and this is why Tom Hanks looks so surprised in his reaction

#54

The infamous boot camp scene in Full Metal Jacket was completely ad-libbed by R. Lee Ermey. At one point Kubrick had to cut the take so Ermey could explain to him what a "goddamn reacharound" was.

#55

The monologues that Matt Damon and Tom Hanks preform about their lives at home in "Saving Private Ryan" was all improvised. Spielberg saw Hanks sitting on his chair so strangely, called over the cameras and captured that moment between the two actors.

#56

In 40 Year-Old Virgin, the scene where Steve Carell is getting his chest waxed is completely unscripted. Even better, the lady doing the waxing was a real spa owner who had no idea what was going to be said. If you go back and watch the scene, everyone's reactions are so much more amazing because everything was off the top of their heads.

#57

The person who did the voice of HAL in 2001 said his lines while sitting in an easy chair and wearing loafers, to make him sound relaxeed

#58

In "Soylent Green", when Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson) reads the Soylent Corporation Oceanographic Report from 2015-2019, he realizes that the oceans are dead and that Soylent Green HAD to be made from corpses. So he goes to a Euthanasia Parlor. When Thorne (Charlton Heston) catches up to him, and is talking to him about "things", Thorne has tears in his eyes. This is because he was the only one on the set that knew that Robinson was, in fact, dying of cancer, and died 12 days after the filming ended.

#59

(Spoiler alert) In Back to the Future, Marty's family is very wealthy (or at least much wealthier) at the end in the new time. Crispin Glover, who played George McFly, disagreed with the morality of the ending and contested it. Because he was contractually obligated to finish the film, however, he did. He did not, though, appear in either of the sequels. To remedy this, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale (co-creators) put in a look-alike wearing huge sunglasses, and used footage from the firsts movie to make it appear as though Glover was in the sequels.

Upon seeing this, Glover sued the two, and now there are stricter regulations about this sort of thing.

Image credits: ColsonIRL

#60

For the laboratory in Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder wanted the set to look as much like the original Universal Frankenstein set as possible. Brooks learned that Ken Strickfaden, the original set designer, was still alive, so he went to visit him to get his advice on how to go about it. Instead, Strickfaden told him he had the original set pieces in his garage. Brooks rented the equipment in exchange for giving Strickfaden screen credit for his work, which he hadn't gotten on the original film.

#61

Anyone who fell asleep on the set of Inglorious Basterds was photographed with a giant dildo next to them.

Image credits: paulrenaud

#62

In "Amadeus," during the filming of the Don Giovanni scene, the actor playing Giovanni wears a long feather in his cap. At one point Giovanni puts his elbow on the table and leans on his hand, with the cap feather near the candles on the table. The scene was being filmed in the historic Count Nostitz Theater in Prague, where Don Giovanni had actually debuted two centuries earlier.

During one take, the actor's feather caught fire and he did not realize. Director Milos Forman, famous for not cutting during scenes, said nothing and allowed the scene to continue. The curator of the theater had to approach Forman and beg him to cut the scene for fear that he would burn down the historic landmark.

tl;dr - The director of "Amadeus" put his actors at risk and nearly burned down an historical theater because he did not want to stop shooting while an actor's hat was on fire.

#63

In Alien, you know the egg-room? You know the cool laser-mist stuff covering the eggs? To make that, the producers borrowed stage equipment from The Who.

#64

Star Wars: Wookiee suits were made from human hair.

#65

In "Psycho" Hitchcock got the idea for the blood swirling in the bottom of the shower drain from watching someone stir chocolate syrup in milk and how smooth the swirling looked. In the actual shower scene they ended up using chocolate syrup to recreate that look.

#66

Production of Cast Away was shut down for a year so Tom Hanks could lose the required weight. Instead of just sitting around waiting, director Robert Zemeckis and his crew used the hiatus to make What Lies Beneath.

#67

The Mustache Tom Hardy wears in the movie Bronson is actually Charles Bronson's mustache that he shaved off and was made into a loose-mustache for Hardy to wear. Talking about getting the right materials.

#68

The Michael Keaton batman wore custom Nike Air Jordans.

#69

the original title of 'Apocalypse Now' was 'War, What is it Good For?', but Brando made a huge fuss about it because he had once had an unpleasant sexual experience while listening to that song. he was totally prissy throughout the making of that movie.

#70

In pulp fiction, the adrenaline shot scene was filmed with him taking the needle out and then played backwards to give the stabbing effect

#71

Havn't seen these yet. In Titanic: The scene where the water crashes into the dinner hall (?), they only had that one chance to film it because that whole set was actually being destroyed by the water.

When Jack draws Rose, it is actually James Cameron's hands they show drawing.

Kate Winslet was the only one not to wear a wetsuit and got sick because of it. They didn't want the suit to interfer with the sheer dresses. Her dresses were also a size or two too large to make her look small and vulnerable.

When she's saving Jack from the handcuffs, she steps into the water and gasps at how cold it was. That was a real reaction, so was Jack's "oh shit".

Kate had a really hard time during filming and almost/wanted to drop the movie. During the end of filming she had to wear a wig due to her hair being damaged from the dye.

When Jack says "get on the bed, uhhh the couch", that was a real mistake they decided to keep in.

The most visited Titanic victim grave belongs to "J. Dawson". No relation to Jack and James had no idea until after the movie.

I really like Titanic.

#72

Pink Floyd funded Monty Python and the Holy Grail for tax purposes. But they were also huge fans of monty python in general and would interupt recording sessions whenever flying circus came on.

#73

In the Boondock Saints:

While filming the scene where Rocco shoots the cat. He asked Duffy if the "gun" was going to be loud so he can prepare for it. Duffy said no and they started filming.

Rocco banged on the table and the gun was loud. Rocco's reaction in the film is genuine.

#74

Something went wrong during the production of Toy Story 2 and the whole movie was almost deleted.

#75

Seth Rogen rolled the cross joint in Pineapple Express

#76

During the filming of Tron, Jeff Bridges produced too much of a bulge in the crotch area in his computer outfit, so he was forced to wear a dance belt to conceal it.

#77

This scene in Good Will Hunting

The fart joke was improvised by Robin Williams, the camera and crew had no idea it was coming. You can see the camera shaking slightly during the scene because the camera crew was laughing so hard. They decided to keep the take for the final production.

#78

During the filming of The Hangover the Mercedes that Doug drives in the movie was actually stolen off the set.

During filming in Las Vegas, one of the Mercedes (a very beat up and distinctive one) was stolen from the lot where the vehicles were being kept. The next day the production was filming driving sequences and traffic was being held up by the local police. A production person noticed that a very distinctive Mercedes was part of the cars being held, the police were told, the driver was arrested and the car was recovered.

#79

In fight club when Tyler tells all the members of project mayhem to pick a fight with a stranger, you can see the camera shaking when one of the members sprays a guy with a hosepipe because the cameraman was laughing so much

#80

A couple of Disney ones:

• In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Kevin Kline (who plays Phoebus) waved a plastic prop sword around while doing his lines. They had to hang the microphone higher because he kept hitting it.

• Also in HoND, the animators gave Frollo's horse a name: Snowball.

• In Hercules, Hades was originally intended to be a lot more like Frollo or Jafar (calm, slow-talking, elegant/refined, etc), but James Woods read the dialogue as if he was a used car salesman in his audition and wound up getting the role.

• In an alternate ending of The Nightmare Before Christmas, it was revealed that Oogie Boogie was a giant puppet being manipulated by Dr. Finkelstein.

• In The Princess and the Frog, the voice actress playing Tiana is left-handed and insisted that Tiana also be left-handed.

#81

In Wayne's World, Dana Carvey's line, "Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he put on a dress and played a girl bunny?" was improvised. Mike Myers' laughter that follows is genuine and thankfully was used in the movie.

Also, Mike threatened to leave the production when producers wanted to use Guns N'Roses instead of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

GNR was left out of Wayne's World, but was put into Terminator 2. Robert Patrick (T-1000) went to James Cameron to use NIN as the band of choice for the movie as his brother, Richard Patrick, was the guitarist. GNR was used instead because Arnold liked them.

#82

During the shoot of The Shining, Stanley Kubrick actually scared Wendy to the point that, in the scene where she gets slowly chased up the stairs by Jack while trying to defend herself with a baseball bat, she was actually terrified. BTW it was Stanley Kubrick who chased her up the stairs.

#83

James Cameron got his start in movies doing special effects. He was helping to make a horror movie and was filming live maggots. To get the maggots to be more active, Cameron would run an electric current through the table and the maggots would become super active. One day he was filming maggots as a producer was watching. He would say, "Action!" to the maggots and they would magically begin moving. The producer was so impressed, he asked Cameron to direct Piranha 2. Thus, starting his directing career.

#84

During the filming of Eastern Promises, Viggo Mortensen terrified a Russian couple out of their wits when he went into a restaurant with his (fake) tattoos still showing. He actually had to go over to them and explain who he was and about the movie because they literally thought a member of the Russian Mafia had just walked in.

#85

On the set of The Blues Brothers, they had to get John Belushi to go and tell Carrie Fisher she was doing too much coke.

#86

In the dark knight Heath ledger actually asked Christian Bale to actually beat him up during the interrogation scene

#87

In Die Hard, when filming the shot of Alan Rickman falling from the window, they gave him a countdown, and then dropped him as they said one.

The shock on his face as he's released is all real.

#88

In The Emperor's New Groove (I think I have this right):

Remember the bit where Patrick (Kronk) Warburton is trying to hide Kuzco's body and doing this off-key "singing"? According to the director, Warburton, while a funny man, can't sing at all and his tone deaf noise-making is not an act. Even better, it was improvised and thus, technically, he was the composer of the "music". And, as the composer, Disney's lawyers insisted that he sell them the rights to the music. The irony of this was not lost on anyone.

#89

Peter Cushing, the man who played Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars is hardly ever filmed where you can see him from head to toe. This is because the boots they gave him to wear were terribly uncomfortable. So Cushing brought his own pink fuzzy slippers to the set and they filmed him from the waist up. If you check out the scene where he orders the destruction of Alderaan he's actually wearing pink fuzzy slippers.

#90

Director John Hughes sent the cast of The Breakfast Club to a real high school for a couple weeks prior to filming. All of the cast members stayed in character, and Judd Nelson, who played John Bender, was thrown out of several classes.

#91

In M *A * S * H (the movie, not the show), the shot when Houlihan is in the shower and the tent is pulled down had to he redone several times. Sally Kellerman was embarrassed by her big hips and dove out of site too quickly. To counter this, for one take some of the actors stood right by the camera with their dicks out to shock her into slowing down. It worked.

Also, while not really a behind the scenes sort of thing, Radar is the only character played by the same actor in both the movie and the TV show.

#92

Monty Python's Life of Brian was filmed in Tunisia, and reusing sets from 1977 movie Jesus of Nazareth. About 4-5 Biblical movies were filmed in Tunisia in that 2 year period.

#93

In the final scene of "The Graduate," when they come and sit on the bus, the director behind the camera was yelling and swearing at them. That was not in the script. They really have that look of horror.

#94

For Alien, HR Giger used real human skulls (some of which, judging by their teeth, appeared to be children) purchased from India to design the xenomorph's head.

#95

Wet Hot American Summer was filmed at Camp Towanda in northeast Pennsylvania. The owners only allowed it because the producers told them it would be a family comedy, and were mortified when they saw the film.