Every so often, a director lets the right actors play fast and loose with the script
and the result is comedy gold - sometimes even when the film isn't a comedy at all.
Here's a look at some of the most hilarious unscripted movie moments.
The 2016 Ghostbusters may not be as iconic and revered as the original, but it still
has some truly great improvised moments.
While you might not think that's too shocking given the comedic experience of the main cast,
one of the funniest made-up scenes came from someone with none of that training: Chris
Hemsworth.
His first scene in the film where his character, the doofus hunk Kevin, is interviewed for
the receptionist job was almost completely made up on the spot.
Apparently, the filmmakers had to take the lenses out of Kevin's glasses because they
were too reflective for the camera.
Then, when Hemsworth absent-mindedly rubbed his eye through the frames, Melissa McCarthy
called him out and comedy magic was born.
"Can I ask why no glass?"
"Oh, oh yeah, they just kept getting dirty, so I took them out.
Don't have to clean them anymore.
Can just-”
In addition, one of the best moments of the movie was 100% Hemsworth when he named Kevin's
dog:
"Your dog's name is my cat?"
"No, Mike Hat."
"Your dog's name is Mike, last name hat?"
"Well his full name is Michael Hat."
The fourth collaboration between Adam McKay and Will Ferrell might not get quoted as often
as Anchorman or Step Brothers nowadays, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have some hilarious
moments.
Of all the scenes that Adam McKay is most proud of, a moment from The Other Guys apparently
tops the list.
In the scene, Ferrell's pencil-pushing cop, Allen Gamble absurdly strikes back after Mark
Wahlberg's character threatened to attack and eat him alive, like a lion would a tuna.
"If I were a lion and you were a tuna, I would swim out in the middle of the ocean and freaking
eat you!”
According to McKay, he had asked Ferrell "how would a tuna fight a lion?" and Ferrell improvised
the rest.
"You find yourself in the ocean, twenty-foot waves, I'm assuming it's off the coast of
South Africa, coming up against a full grown 800-pound tuna?"
This is such an excellent moment because the response isn't some array of one-liners or
quirky comebacks.
It's a full-length narrative.
"We've talked to ourselves, we've communicated, and said, 'you know what?
Lion tastes good.
Let's go get some more lion.'
We've developed a system."
Gamble has fully thought through how a school of tuna fish could overtake the king of the
jungle, and he doesn't skimp on any details.
"We will construct a series of breathing apparatus with kelp.
We will be able to trap certain amounts of oxygen."
It's easy to see why it's one of McKay's favorite Ferrell moments.
Ben Stiller may have gotten a little too into his role as the idiotic male model in Zoolander.
The scene where David Duchovny explains the entire plot behind using male models as trained
assassins was made a million times funnier by a simple mistake.
Ben Stiller was listening so intently to Duchovny's monologue, he completely lost track of his
lines.
"Male models are genetically constructed to become assassins.
They're in peak physical condition."
So, when there was a moment of silence and everyone was staring at Stiller to speak,
he repeated his first line, the one that triggered Duchovy's monologue in the first place:
"But why male models?"
"Are you serious?
I just told you that, a moment ago."
It's really a perfect moment that cements both the utter idiocy of the great male model,
and Duchovny's underrated comic genius.
Nepotism was in full swing on the set of Goodfellas but, for once it made for an excellent scene.
Director Martin Scorsese cast his real mother to play Tommy DeVito's mom in Goodfellas.
During the dinner scene, Tommy and his gangster friends stop by his mom's house to pick up
a shovel to bury a body, when his mom insists they all have a full dinner before going back
out.
Scorsese didn't tell his mom that the characters had a body in the trunk.
He just told her her film son was coming home, and she's going to make them some dinner.
So, going into the scene, Mrs. Scorsese only knew she'd be talking to her son and his friends,
and that she'd show them a painting she made.
Everything from Tommy's explanation of how they just hit a deer, to Mrs. Scorsese's "you
talk too much" joke, was all improvised.
"In Italian it sounds much nicer."
"What's that mean?"
"It means he's content to be a jerk."
It's such a wonderfully natural unscripted performance, she easily steals the scene from
DeNiro, and makes this slightly out-of-the-blue comedic scene feel right at home in the grim,
grimy, bloody world of Goodfellas.
“Look at this.”
“It’s beautiful.”
"I like this one, one dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way."
R. Lee Ermey was a real life Marine, and had been in five war-based films before Full Metal
Jacket came along.
But originally, he was only hired to be a technical adviser.
The fact that you'd have R. Lee Ermey on-set at all times to scream at you if you got something
wrong is a little scary.
But Ermey wasn't going to sit around and just advise - if there's one thing Ermey does best,
it's scream kick-ass creative insults.
So, he had a guy film him training the extras by yelling and insulting them all the live-long
day, which he did completely in character.
Director Stanley Kubrick saw the magic of Ermey's yelling, and gave him the part.
Ermey admits the original dialogue for his character wasn't realistic and up to his standards,
so almost everything he says is entirely from him.
"Who said that?
Who the f--- said that?
Who's the slimy little comment of s--- twinkle-toed c--------- down here who just signed his own
death warrant?"
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