Many actors leap at the chance to star in a movie especially if it's a part they've
always wanted. Sometimes, however, they won't take on a role unless they get something in return.
These are the demands actors had before accepting a role in a movie.
Playing a superhero often means an actor has to adhere to a regime of grueling workouts
and strict dietary requirements. But while honing your superhero bod is very much part
of the job, it can also be an excessive demand that causes a lot of unnecessary stress, given
that movies are, after all, totally fake and stunt people do most of the heavy lifting.
So, when Florence Pugh signed on to play Yelena Belova in Black Widow, she had one demand:
nobody would control her body but her. As Pugh explained to Elle:
"When I got the job, I wanted to know what the regime was. I wanted to know whether it
was them or me calling the shots. That was a big deal for me. I didn’t want to be part
of something where I was constantly checked on. And people making sure I was in the “right”
shape. That’s not me at all."
Pugh even brought her own food to set, despite co-star Scarlett Johansson offering meals
cooked by her own private chef. Although a personal chef is important to stars who need
to track the nutrients they're taking in, Pugh found doing her own cooking far more relaxing.
Adam Beach has long been one of the most prominent Native actors in Hollywood. A member of the
Anishinaabe Nation, one of the First Nations in Canada, he has frequently spoken out against
whitewashing Native roles in Hollywood movies. He also walks the walk, and on at least one
occasion, put a very specific condition in place before taking a role
Beach was cast in John Woo's Windtalkers, a movie about Navajo code talkers during World
War II. It was a huge role, one that might well have vaulted him into the mainstream.
But before he took the part, he had a single demand: the Navajo Nation had to approve his
playing the role. This was a tremendous risk for his career, but one he felt had to take.
The Navajo Nation approved his casting, but they added a condition of their own. The studio
had to hire an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation to play another code talker. As such,
Roger Willie was hired to play Beach's friend. Willie also taught Beach about the history
of the Navajo people, and the two became good friends during shooting.
In Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West, Liam Neeson plays the villainous
cowboy Clinch Leatherwood, a gunfighter with a heavy Irish accent. Interestingly, the brogue
was Neeson's call, based on a joke from MacFarlane's show Family Guy years earlier, and it was
his one demand before accepting the role. In that Family Guy episode from back in 2006,
Neeson's accent was mocked during a cutaway gag.
"To hell with parliamentary procedure, we've got to wrangle up some cattles."
This would have escaped Neeson's attention entirely if his sons didn't tell him about it.
"My boys come back from school one day, this was a few years ago, they say 'Dad, dad, you
were on Family Guy.' I said, 'A, what is Family Guy?'"
Years later, during pre-production of A Million Ways to Die in the West, MacFarlane called
Neeson and asked him to play a cowboy. Neeson, not forgetting the joke, agreed on the one
condition that he could do it in a broad Irish accent.
As a child of sharecroppers, Esther Rolle's father made her promise never to be a domestic
servant his logic being that he couldn't protect her when she was in other people's houses.
Rolle later got quite a kick out of this, given that she became famous as maid Florida
Evans on Maude. But she made one demand before she accepted the role that made her famous.
Rolle was working on Broadway when Norman Lear, one of TV's all time biggest hitmakers,
asked her to star as a maid on Maude. Lear's shows were progressive for their era and remain
so to this day but Rolle was concerned regardless. As such, Rolle only agreed to take the part
after Lear guaranteed she'd play a well-rounded character instead of just another Hollywood maid.
Thus, the role of Florida Evans was cast.
Lear kept his promise. Florida took no guff and regularly challenged Maude, often mocking
Maude's performative liberal attitude. Subsequently, Florida became so popular that after only
two years on Maude, the Evans family got their own spinoff with Good Times.
By the early 1980s, Leonard Nimoy was over Mr. Spock. He had been the most popular character
during the original run, the show's syndication meant nobody would forget it, and the writing
for Spock in Star Trek: The Motion Picture was abysmal. Nimoy famously titled his 1979
autobiography I Am Not Spock, and insisted he wanted to focus on his Broadway work. Producer
Harve Bennett only roped Nimoy back into the role for Wrath of Khan by promising a moving death scene.
Wrath of Khan ended up as a huge success, and it revitalized Nimoy's affection for his
character. In his second autobiography, appropriately titled I Am Spock, Nimoy outlined the one
condition he had mapped out for reprising the character.
During a private screening of Khan, Nimoy saw Spock's burial tube on the Genesis planet
and quickly surmised he'd soon be getting a call from Paramount, asking him to return
for a third movie. While waiting to meet with executives, Nimoy remembered that he and William
Shatner had asked for chances to direct back in the TV days but were flatly denied.
Looking for a new challenge and realizing he had the leverage, Nimoy said he'd only return for
Star Trek III if he could direct. They accepted his proposal immediately, and Nimoy would
go on to direct the next two Trek features.
During the initial run of Star Trek: The Original Series, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy
put so-called "favored nations clauses" in their contracts. This meant that whatever
bonuses, pay raises or creative control one actor got, the other was given, as well.
Years later, Shanter would cash in on this.
While the first Trek movie made bank at the box office, Wrath of Khan kicked off the show's
second life as a movie franchise.
"Khan!"
The Search For Spock and The Voyage Home saw Nimoy direct, which is where Shatner spotted
his opening. After Voyage Home, Shatner became embroiled in a pay dispute about the next movie.
He also had one major condition for returning. Either they let him direct like
they did with Nimoy, or they'd make the movie without Kirk. Given that the latter wasn't
an option, Paramount gave him the reigns. Sadly, Shatner's effort, The Final Frontier,
is now regarded as one of the worst Star Trek movies, and even Shatner himself regrets making it.
Fresh off winning Best Actor at the Oscars for playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody,
Rami Malek was one of the biggest stars in the world. This meant he was in heavy demand,
and it also meant he had some leverage in negotiating the roles he took.
So when he was offered the role of Safin in No Time To Die, he was well-placed to lay out one particular condition.
As with many Bond villains, Safin is, essentially, a terrorist. Malek, who's proud of his Egyptian
heritage, had reservations about playing a character with that label. Before he accepted
the role, he told director Cary Fukunaga:
"We cannot identify [Safin] with any act of terrorism reflecting an ideology or a religion.
That's not ­something I would entertain, so if that is why I am your choice then you
can count me out."
Fukunaga made it clear that wasn't his vision, and Malek gladly took the role.
After M*A*S*H ended, Alan Alda was offered countless roles. One such role wasn't as a
character, so much, but as a presenter. PBS wanted him to host Scientific American Frontiers,
a show that featured new technology, breakthroughs in science and medicine, and interviews with
various scientists. Alda was a lifelong admirer of the scientific, but he wanted to do more
than just introduce segments. As such, he had one demand for signing on: Alda had to
conduct the interviews himself. The executives agreed, and he went on to host the program
for over a decade.
Alda's genial but precise interview style earned praise from fans and critics alike.
Hosting the show also showed him that many scientists aren't exactly well-versed in conversing
with average people as a result, he became a lifelong advocate for science communication.
His campaigning produced legit results, too, and in 2009, Stony Brook University even opened
the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.
Hot off the back of The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston was on a career high in the early
'90s, and she was looking for more ways to capitalize on it. At some point, she pitched
Disney on the idea of playing Cinderella. They were receptive, but the movie kept getting
delayed, first because of touring and then because Houston got married and had children.
No longer feeling quite like Cinderella, Houston decided someone with more "wonder and innocence"
should take the role. She had someone in mind, too.
Houston recommended actress and singer Brandy, who was starring on sitcom Moesha at the time,
for the role of Cinderella. Houston reached out, and Brandy was receptive, on one condition.
Brandy would only take the role if Houston herself a longtime fan idol to the actress
would play the Fairy Godmother. Houston agreed, and Disney started production on one of the
best-regarded adaptations of Cinderella in recent memory.
Bill Murray had a passion project in the early 1980s a movie adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's
novel The Razor's Edge. There had previously been a successful adaptation starring Tyrone
Power in 1946, but Murray wanted to make it his own. The project represented Murray's
desire to try drama and expand his creative limits. However, there was one problem:
he couldn't get financial backing.
Around the same time, however, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd were putting together a little
movie called Ghostbusters at Columbia Pictures but they were having a hard time nailing down
another lead actor. So, Murray made a deal. He'd sign on to Ghostbusters only if Columbia would finance The Razor's Edge.
“I love this plan, I’m excited to be a part of it. Let’s do it!”
The terms were accepted. The Razor's Edge bombed and received mediocre reviews, sadly,
but it's hard to talk about Murray without mentioning Ghostbusters today. So that's at
least half a win.
Gene Wilder
In the late 1960s, director Mel Stuart was in the process of casting Willy Wonka and
the Chocolate Factory. Fred Astaire and Joel Grey were contenders for the title role, and
it's easy to imagine another world where either of them got it and played the role admirably.
In our world, however, one man blew Stuart away at the audition Gene Wilder.
Largely known for The Producers, which wasn't a huge hit in its time, Wilder couldn't touch
the others in terms of star power. Stuart, however, was so convinced by the read that
he chased down Wilder afterwards to say:
"As far as I'm concerned, you've got it."
Per Wilder's telling, Stuart later came to Wilder's home in New York to offer the part
to him personally. Wilder agreed, but he had one demand: he wanted a scene added to the
script. As he explained:
"I can come out, and all the crowd quiets down, and I am using a cane. [...] And I walk
slowly, and you can hear a pin drop. And my cane gets stuck in a brick. And I fall forward
onto my face and do a forward somersault and jump up, and they all start to applaud."
A confused Stuart asked for an explanation. Wilder responded:
"Because no one will know from that point on whether I am lying or telling the truth."
Stuart said yes, of course, and a both a Hollywood icon and a timeless movie moment was born.
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