5 Movie Scenes Made Possible by Torture
We know this is a shock to some people, but movies are make-believe. They’re just actors playing pretend, not real nuclear physicists or secret agents or mall cops. By “some people,” of course, we mean renowned directors, who don’t seem to understand that actors can display emotion without being relentlessly harrowed.
Paul Thomas Anderson Scared Mark Wahlberg With Firecracker Noises for Three Days
A huge reason why the drug deal scene in Boogie Nights is so unbearably tense is the random explosions of firecrackers thrown by a boy whose presence is mercifully never explained. It seems like that would be bad enough in the moment, but to get Wahlberg really on edge, Thomas Anderson made a habit of slapping two-by-fours together to simulate the sound even when Cracker Boy wasn’t around. That’s a real Pavlovian response we’re watching.
William Freidkin Slapped and Shot at Actors While Filming ‘The Exorcist’
Apparently, The Exorcist’s actors weren’t scared enough of getting puked on by Linda Blair for Friedkin’s taste. To make sure they truly went from zero to panicked, he took to firing blanks from a shotgun just before calling “Action.” He also slapped Father William O’Malley before shooting the scene where his character performs last rites for another priest because “the shock of it brought forth tears.” Finally, Regan’s bedroom was actually a freezer, keeping the actors shivering and visibly breathing while the crew cozied up in parkas.
Alfred Hitchcock Threw Surprise Live Birds at Tippi Hedren
For the climax of The Birds, when Hedren’s character is attacked by a massive flock of birds in an attic bedroom, Hitchcock told her he would use mechanical birds, then claimed at the last minute that the props looked too fake. Instead, he ordered the crew to hurl hundreds of live birds at her — for five days straight. At one point, the birds, which were trained to attack her, were tied to her costume, so she literally could not escape them. After seeing the state she was in, Hedren’s doctor straight-up asked Hitchcock, “Are you trying to kill her?”
Francis Ford Coppola Tried to Get Winona Ryder to Cry With Genuine Malice
Crying on command is part of the job, and something Ryder has demonstrated throughout her half-century career. On the set of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, however, Coppola apparently didn’t think she had it in her, so he started hurling pointed insults at her and encouraged the other men on set to do the same. “Literally, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu (Reeves) … Francis was trying to get all of them to yell things that would make me cry,” she said. “But Keanu wouldn’t, Anthony wouldn’t.”
Um, Richard? Show yourself.
Stanley Kubrick Terrorized Shelley Duvall Until Her Hair Fell Out
The Shining holds the world record for number of takes filmed of one scene at 148, but the baseball bat scene almost reaches it at 127, and it wasn’t just because Kubrick was a perfectionist. He wanted Duvall exhausted and sobbing, just like he did throughout the rest of the movie, cajoling her into her “terrorized captive” performance, working her to the bone, and forbidding other actors from “sympathizing” with her. That must have been especially hard for Jack Nicholson when she showed him clumps of her hair that had started to fall out. And Kubrick didn’t think she could be a drama queen.
