Not all movie sets are the happy places they appear to be, and there’s sometimes one actor who keeps everyone waiting or starts arguments with everyone they come across.
The actor who got fired during the first week
Lawrence Tierney played crime boss Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs. It seems he took the role a bit too seriously. Director Quentin Tarantino said Tierney would question almost everything he did, even though Tarantino was the one who was directing the movie.
It got to the point where their arguments turned physical during the first week of filming. Tarantino fired Tierney on the spot. Tarantino wasn’t the only one who disliked Tierney, as the crew applauded when he fired the actor. Tierney did return to finish the movie. But his relationship with Tarantino was ruined.
The superhero who wouldn’t answer to his own name
Anyone working on the set of Blade: Trinity had to be careful with Wesley Snipes. They couldn’t call him by his real name. His co-star Patton Oswalt said that Snipes insisted on being called Blade, and that he’d spend most of his free time alone in his trailer.
Snipes struggled to communicate with director David Goyer, too. He kept sending Goyer handwritten notes, rather than speaking to him directly. Snipes allegedly tried to strangle Goyer at one point, and it seemed making the movie was difficult for everyone involved.
The argument that stopped filming
Lucy Liu had some choice words to describe the filming of Charlie’s Angels. She said that fellow actor Bill Murray began making some unpleasant comments toward her after they disagreed about the script. But Liu wasn’t going to simply accept his words.
No, she confronted him, and it led to a very heated argument. It was so heated, in fact, that production stopped for the day, and they didn’t become friends afterward. They remained civil, though. It’s no wonder Murray didn’t come back for the 2003 sequel.
The unwanted surprises in the rehearsal room
Jared Leto had a very nasty way of greeting his Suicide Squad co-stars. He put a dead pig on the rehearsal table. Yes, really. Viola Davis said someone delivered the animal on Leto’s behalf, and it scared the veteran actress quite a bit.
Margot Robbie said Leto gave her a live rat, too. Leto was playing the Joker, and it seemed that his method acting was a little too much for his co-stars. They couldn’t stand how invested he’d become in the character.
The star who challenged a young director
Being on the set of The Royal Tenenbaums sure was difficult. At one point, Gene Hackman got annoyed because he thought he was being underpaid for the movie, and he decided to take out some of that anger on Wes Anderson. Bill Murray stepped in to defend him.
Murray said Hackman was really nasty toward the young director, and it made certain scenes rather awkward. When Hackman finished filming, he supposedly left without even saying goodbye to Anderson. But he said later that he liked the finished movie. How strange.
The cast member who kept to himself
The majority of the young actors in Dazed and Confused had a great time while filming. Shawn Andrews didn’t, though. According to director Richard Linklater, Andrews struggled to get along with almost every other person, aside from Milla Jovovich.
The worst tension was apparently between Andrews and Jason London. Linklater actually had to step in to get filming moving again. It was quite a contrast from Matthew McConaughey, who everyone supposedly loved, so Linklater gave McConaughey some of Andrews’s material.
The disagreements on a remote island
Filming The Island of Dr. Moreau was already difficult, and Val Kilmer only made things harder. He’d already requested a smaller role in the movie while the production was dealing with replacing the film’s original director, Richard Stanley. John Frankenheimer replaced Stanley.
But he kept arguing with Kilmer, and things got so bad that Frankenheimer said he’d never work with him again. Marlon Brando also had some arguments with Kilmer. Another one of the actors on set, David Thewlis, said he’d like to forget the five-month production. It was that bad.
The three leading men who couldn’t agree
Paul Schrader had his work cut out for him while he was directing Blue Collar. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto apparently all believed they should be the biggest star of the film. They kept arguing throughout filming.
All three actors also walked off the set at different points, and Schrader struggled to keep production going. Even lawyers got involved. So, it’s no surprise that Schrader felt overwhelmed, and he said he started crying at one point.
The leading man who kept everyone waiting
During Mutiny on the Bounty, Trevor Howard reached his limit with Marlon Brando. His main issues were that Brando was often late and that he changed his performances without much warning. Brando improvised dialogue, and Howard struggled to respond.
One of the worst days came during filming in Tahiti. Apparently, Brando would leave Howard waiting in the heat while he went to talk with local women. Brando eventually returned, and Howard decided to walk off the set. Director Lewis Milestone had problems with Brando, too.
The partnership that ended in Ghana
Werner Herzog made four movies with Klaus Kinski before Cobra Verde. You’d think he knew what he was in for. But it was their fifth movie that caused a string of arguments that only got worse during filming in Ghana. Cinematographer Thomas Mauch also felt frustrated.
During one particularly stressful moment, Kinski attacked Herzog with a rock, and they stopped speaking to each other entirely. They’d already worked together for a decade, yet it seems the fifth film was the final straw.
The actor who took realism unusually far
In Fury, Shia LaBeouf was determined to look like a real soldier, and he refused to simply settle for wounds. Actor Logan Lerman said he saw LaBeouf cut his own face because he thought the makeup wasn’t good enough, and he also had a tooth removed. He refused to wash regularly.
As you can probably imagine, LaBeouf’s lack of hygiene caused a lot of issues for other people on set. Those reports haven’t been independently confirmed, however. Brad Pitt praised LaBeouf’s dedication, and Lerman spoke pretty well about his acting.
The co-star who wouldn’t socialize
You might remember Amy Hill for playing Mrs. Kwan in the comedy The Cat in the Hat. Working on set wasn’t as fun as you might imagine. Hill said Mike Myers would spend most of his time avoiding the other performers, and he was often late to set.
The cast and crew would have to wait hours for Myers because he was so late. If that wasn’t bad enough, Myers’s trailer area was hidden behind tents, and he had an assistant whose only job was to carry his chocolates. Hill later described the experience as a nightmare.
The veteran star who disliked the whole production
Burt Reynolds allegedly didn’t like Boogie Nights all that much, yet he still ended up getting an Oscar nomination for his role. For starters, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the subject matter. He also had several disagreements with director Paul Thomas Anderson.
Reynolds supposedly tried performing his scenes with an Irish accent, and Mark Wahlberg found it hilarious. Reynolds didn’t. Things soon became heated, and Reynolds turned down the chance to appear in Anderson’s next movie, Magnolia. Filming Boogie Nights was that bad.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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