Twists , emotion and tears, but also romance and laughter. Cinema really gives us so many emotions also thanks to the actors who completely dedicate themselves to the films in which they have decided to act.
It is always fun to know the background of what happens during the shooting, the manias of the actors, the directors, the loves that can arise on the set, but it is equally interesting to understand the difficulties of the roles and the requests that these artists carry out every day.
We will discover together some curiosities about blockbuster films like Titanic or Django Unchained (those who appreciate Leonardo Di Caprio will surely be happy), strange facts related to scenes that have gone down in history, and we will understand how to make a film with little budget and make it a true cult that endures at the time.
Are you ready not to envy your favorite movie stars at all? Let’s dive into the world of Hollywood madness and the most loved sets. Let’s see together the 10 strangest curiosities from the sets of successful films:
1) 2001 A Space Odyssey
It seems like working with director Stanley Kubrick was never easy. A freak of detail and very precise on set, he was able to shoot the same scene many times until the actors were exhausted. Regarding one of his greatest masterpieces, 2001 A Space Odyssey , the director decided to destroy all props so that they could not be reused in other productions of the same genre. Conservative to say the least!
2) Rocky IV
Silvester Stallone invented the figure of Rocky and also interpreted it so well that it gave life to one of the longest-lived sagas in the history of cinema. And to think that, at first, they didn’t even want to give the part to him. In the fourth chapter of the Rocky series , the actor asked his antagonist, played by Dolph Lundgren to actually hit him during the scenes in the ring. This resulted in a lot of physical trauma to the actor and a rush to the hospital after a blow to the abdomen.
3) Titanic
There is certainly more than one reason why Titanic took 11 Oscars out of a record 14 nominations and thrilled many audiences the year of its theatrical release. The love story on the set created an excellent relationship, which continues today, between Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet, but the work with director James Cameron was anything but easy. The long hours of filming (around 80 per week) and diving in the freezing water certainly didn’t help the mood.
4) Mom I missed the plane
Every Christmas is a classic to watch with friends and family, but there are some well-hidden secrets that characterized the production of Mamma I Missed the Plane . One of the strangest ones concerns the scene where Joe Pesci grabs actor Macaulay Culkin’s finger and bites him. The scene obviously had to be mimicked, but Pisces seriously bit the actor’s finger who still bears a clearly visible scar from that unfortunate scene.
5) The house
How is a cult built? With a very low budget film in the eighties, few actors (all friends) and a lot of absurd scenes. Evil Dead translated by us as The House is part of Sam Raimi ‘s famous horror trilogy . For those who know him, the film combines the classic themes of genre films with an obvious hilarity and characters on the verge of the grotesque . On the set, however, it was not looking good, the $ 300,000 budget ran out quickly and many actors left the set due to the excruciating hours of makeup, filming and working conditions. In fact, the last half of the film is a solo by Bruce Campbell with some extra appearances in the background.
6) Batman: The Return
Although she has had many faces, the most memorable Catwoman remains that of Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman: The Return . The actress recently recalled that preparing for that role on a physical level was exhausting. They had to put on her costume by helping her with talcum powder, then making it adhere to her skin using the vacuum packing technique . Her costume was so tight that the actress nearly fainted several times , but that’s not all. The canary scene was not shot with a scene canary: apparently the real canary had moments of fear , but flew away to the director’s “cut”. Pfeiffer, on the other hand, had an experience that she still remembers with horror.
7) Psyco
How much trouble did Alfred Hitchcock go through when he made the first “crime” for the cinema with rather strong scenes? Many, thanks to censorship of course. You can imagine that the sixties were not ready to see quite brutal murder scenes , but that they also lashed out at the toilet flush… maybe that was a bit too much for them too. The film, however, was the first to have a scene in which an actor, to hide his misdeeds, decides to flush the toilet … and the camera frames the toilet all the time.
8) Django Unchained
Once upon a time Django by Sergio Corbucci, the first and inspirer of Django Unchained brought to success by Quentin Tarantino in 2012. The film deals with the theme of slavery in 1800’s Texas and finds in the plot a space for the part of Calvin J. Candie, the terrible landowner played by Leonardo Di Caprio. In one scene, the actor was so engrossed in acting that he cut his hand . The cut started to bleed, but the actor continued to act using his own blood to make the part even more annoying: he decided to spread it on the face of actress Kerry Washington. Definitely an unforgettable day for her.
9) Trainspotting
Quite famous, even without introduction, is the disgusting scene in the cult film Trainspotting which involved and upset a generation. One of Irvine Welsh’s most famous novels was a success on screen thanks to the transposition of Danny Boyle. The scene in which one of the protagonists, Mark Renton , slips his whole body into the cup. The stage room and the cup itself had been covered in chocolate , so not only did it smell like a pastry , it was actually a delicious mixture to dip into.
10) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
First version for the big screen that introduces the fantastic world of Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, the film, starring a superb Gene Wilder, is still a classic of cinema today. The special effects in the seventies had to be adjusted a bit and absurdly the chocolate river was created with real chocolate , while the flower-shaped cup that the actor had to chew was made of wax . By the end of the shoot, Wilder had to spit it all out. Really not very poetic.
