Although movies are made by the efforts of hundreds of people, it’s often the stars
who hold the power to make or break a production.
Since most Hollywood execs are willing to do practically anything to get their pictures
made, those same actors are able to make some truly outrageous demands while they’re being
courted for their roles.
These are the leading men who really took their terms of employment to the next level.
The high life
Jack Nicholson actually first turned down the role of mob boss Frank Costello in Martin
Scorsese's gangster film The Departed, telling the director that he wouldn’t join a new
project unless it featured a role he was genuinely interested in.
“Heavy lies the crown… sorta thing.”
Scorsese then collaborated with Nicholson in an attempt to tailor the part to Nicholson’s
liking, according to an interview with the actor in Rolling Stone.
The director gave in to such demands as giving Nicholson a romantic scene involving copious
amounts of drugs and two women, though Nicholson retains that it was to demonstrate the evils
of his character.
A stalwart Yankees fan, Nicholson also refused to wear a Red Sox hat during one scene.
Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson, he ended up getting pretty much everything he wanted.
Supersized
During filming on 2012's Men in Black 3, actor and fresh prince Will Smith demanded a 1150
square foot trailer with two-bedrooms and two-baths, along with a movie room, marble
floors, a bar and an office large enough to accommodate 30 people.
The Daily Mail reported that the whole thing cost a whopping $9,000 a week to rent.
On top of that, Smith also demanded another trailer just for his gym equipment.
“Yeah, it’s kind of my thing, some people like it.
Most people.”
Unfortunately, that trailer wasn't exactly super popular with the locals in the NYC neighborhood
where filming was taking place.
After a number of complaints, the mayor’s office finally released a statement saying
that,
"To balance the interests of the production and the neighbourhood, we have instructed
Men in Black III to relocate the trailer to a private lot."
The drop of a hat
In 2014, actor Ben Affleck told the New York Times that he entered into a dispute with
director David Fincher on the set of Gone Girl a few months earlier.
The cause?
A baseball cap.
Affleck, being a Red Sox fanatic, outright refused to wear a hat featuring the logo of
the New York Yankees.
According to Affleck:
"I said, 'David, I love you, I would do anything for you, but I will not wear a Yankees hat.
I just can't.
I can't wear it because it's going to become a thing, David.
I will never hear the end of it.
I can't do it.'
And I couldn't put it on my head."
Eventually, Affleck agreed to wear a Mets hat, calling the compromise "very Switzerland."
On the director’s commentary for Gone Girl, Fincher called out Affleck for his lack of
professionalism and noted that the disagreement shut down production on the film for four
days.
Keeping quiet
Actor Crispin Glover was so appalled by his character’s exposition-heavy dialogue in
Charlie’s Angels that he subsequently attended a meeting and informed the director that he’d
be performing the role as a mute instead.
Surprisingly, he got exactly what he wanted - and Glover’s character never once speaks
during the film’s runtime.
“The thin man."
Glover later told Dazed that his role in Charlie's Angels had a positive impact on his career,
saying,
"I started getting better roles that also paid better.
[…] I've been able to divorce myself from the content of the films I act in and look
at acting as a craft through which I'm helping other filmmakers to accomplish what it is
they want to do."
Expendable
In 2013, word broke that actor Bruce Willis would not be appearing in The Expendables
3.
The reason?
Because Willis had reportedly demanded $4 million for four days of shooting on location
in Bulgaria, and refused to take the $3 million he’d been offered.
Harrison Ford was promptly hired to replace him.
“You don’t have to worry about Church anymore.
He’s out of the picture.”
Fellow Expendables cast member Sylvester Stallone subsequently tweeted:
"WILLIS OUT … HARRISON FORD IN!!!!
GREAT NEWS!!!!!
Been waiting years for this!!!!"
He followed up with another tweet, referencing Willis himself, saying:
"GREEDY AND LAZY … A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE."
A source close to the film's production told The Hollywood Reporter,
"I think [Willis] was pretty surprised he was replaced in 72 hours by Harrison Ford
- a better actor, a much nicer person and a more interesting direction for the film."