Everyone has anxiety about their job, but imagine if everything you did at work was
constantly scrutinized by everyone in the entire world.
Sounds terrible, right?
But that's exactly what every Hollywood actor goes through.
So it's no wonder that many actors have nightmares about standing onstage naked or forgetting
their lines.
But while botching dialogue in the buff sounds extremely embarrassing, it would be infinitely
preferable to actually screwing up so badly that your mistake cost your boss tens of thousands
of dollars, which is exactly what some of Hollywood's biggest stars have done.
Lights!
Camera!
Accidents!
Let's look at some actors who made very costly, very awkward, and expensive, mistakes.
“Action!”
“Gag reel.”
Brando's overnight flight oversight
Shooting The Godfather wasn't exactly smooth sailing.
According to Harlan Lebo's book The Godfather Legacy, actor Al Pacino botched a stunt jump
during the scene where Michael Corleone makes a mad leap onto his getaway car's bumper.
Pacino painfully twisted his ankle and strained a ligament, and the injury forced him to alternately
use crutches, a wheelchair, and a cane to move around between takes.
Several major scenes needed to be rescheduled so Pacino could recuperate from the accident.
But Pacino's mistake sounds like peanuts compared to Marlon Brando's scheduling snafu.
On his very first day of shooting, the legendary actor was supposed to show up to the New York
Eye and Ear Hospital.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.
Brando missed his overnight flight from Los Angeles to New York, a seemingly small setback
that cost producers plenty of cash and a full day of shooting.
Brando's scene was rescheduled for the following day, but his flightiness, or lack thereof,
set producers back a whopping $40,000.
“I want you to rest a while, and a month from now, this Hollywood big shot’s going
to give you what you want.”
Eric Stoltz caught with his McFly down
In one of life's alternate timelines, Eric Stoltz would've played Marty McFly in the
Back to the Future trilogy.
Stoltz was initially cast as the lead in the classic 1985 sci-fi comedy and even played
McFly for five weeks.
Unfortunately, director Robert Zemeckis didn't like his performance.
Despite being, in Zemeckis' words, "a magnificent actor," Stoltz reportedly couldn't tackle
the comedic beats required for the role.
Producer Steven Spielberg agreed, and Universal Pictures brass gave Zemeckis the go-ahead
to replace Stoltz with Michael J. Fox, the director's original choice for the role.
According to Caseen Gaines' book We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the
Future Trilogy, Stoltz was gutted when Zemeckis fired him, but for cast and crew, his departure
may not have been the worst news in the world.
Co-star Lea Thompson claimed Stoltz could be very difficult.
He had reportedly driven folks around the bend with his dedication to Stanislavski method
acting techniques, provoking eye rolls aplenty.
Between recasting the film and rejiggering the shooting schedule to accommodate Fox,
$3 million was added to the budget.
“But I wanted to tell you that it’s been… educational.”
Kurt Russell is no guitar hero
Veteran actor Kurt Russell could be accused of chewing scenery in classic '80s schlock
such as Big Trouble in Little China, and after his colossal mistake on the set of Quentin
Tarantino's 2015 Western The Hateful Eight, he can also be accused of smashing up extraordinarily
expensive props.
To set the scene: Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh portrays outlaw Daisy Domergue, who strums
a guitar at one point in the film, but not just any guitar.
The instrument was a vintage Martin guitar from the 19th century, loaned out by the Martin
Guitar Museum in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
While shooting his scene alongside Leigh, an unfortunate misunderstanding on Russell's
part led to an expensive catastrophe.
The intention was to swap out the instrument, replacing the Martin with a shoddy prop guitar,
which Russell would subsequently pry from Leigh's hands.
Apparently, Russell didn't get the memo.
“Give me that guitar…music time’s over!”
This cut wound up in the final film, and Leigh's reaction to the gaffe was genuine.
Russell destroyed a guitar worth roughly $40,000.
Leigh told Billboard he was so distraught upon realizing his mistake that his eyes literally
welled up.
Dick Boak, the equally distraught director of the Martin Guitar Museum, told Reverb:
"As a result of the incident, the company will no longer loan guitars to movies under
any circumstances."
“How much?”
“$10,000.”
“Damn.”
Edward James Olmos' method mayhem
If Edward James Olmos ever meets Kurt Russell, these two will have an instant icebreaker:
Both men broke exceedingly expensive props that weren't meant to be destroyed.
In Olmos' case, the gaffe occurred while filming a 2007 episode of the epic reboot of sci-fi
classic Battlestar Galactica, a series glossily shot at Vancouver Film Studios on film and
HD.
Entitled "Maelstrom," the episode features Olmos' character Admiral Adama tinkering with
an intricate model ship.
While cameras rolled, the actor was apparently bitten by the improvisation bug and went for
broke, literally.
As an actor, it's important to take risks, but maybe not a risk that involves destroying
expensive props.
It turns out the model was a genuine museum-quality ship the show was renting, according to executive
producer Ronald D. Moore.
"This isn't a prop!
This was hundreds of dollars!"
"Hundreds of dollars" might be putting it mildly.
During a panel discussion at the 2012 Planet Comicon, Olmos suggested the "one-of-a-kind"
piece was, in fact, worth roughly $200,000.
“Nobody told me it cost that much.
Boom!
Oh!
What happened?
What?
What happened?…
oh this is a classic?
Oh?
One of a kind?
Oh.”
Tor reported the trashed model was included in a January 2009 auction, so perhaps some
ravenous Battlestar Galactica fan is dutifully gluing it all back together this very minute.
“Find anything else, let me know right away.”
“If I find anything else, I may retire early.”
Noel Marshall's savage mistake
You know what's a bad idea?
Casting yourself and your family alongside 150 lions, leopards, tigers, jaguars, and
elephants, and capturing every scream on film as everyone is mauled.
That's how filmmaker Noel Marshall created the 1981 stinker Roar, which is generally
considered the most dangerous movie ever made.
The film stars Noel Marshall, his two sons John and Jerry, his then-wife Tippi Hedren,
and her daughter Melanie Griffin.
While filming, the whole cast was routinely savaged by lions, who charged at the actors
and occasionally clawed at their faces.
Noel reportedly wouldn't always yell "Cut!" as his family begged for help because he didn't
want to lose a take.
Hedren suffered multiple scalp wounds.
Griffith temporarily quit, fearing she'd wind up with only "half a face."
"Noel, for whatever reason, was kind of tempting the lions.
You could feel the energy of the cats getting more and more aggressive.”
Ringmaster Noel Marshall was bitten so many times that he wound up hospitalized with gangrene.The
production went wildly over budget and cost $17 million, making it one seriously lavish
Hollywood clunker.
Hedren must have longed for a simpler time when she was merely being attacked by angry
birds.
“And you got to watch out for Veery, okay?”
Taraji P. Henson's Maserati mishap
A stunt gone wrong during production of Babak Najafi's 2018 thriller Proud Mary cost the
filmmakers a hefty chunk of change.
The scene involved Empire actress Taraji P. Henson at the wheel of a deliriously expensive
silver Maserati and maniacally speeding through the streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Henson was quite keen on performing all the required stunt driving herself.
Prior to the incident, she had reportedly pulled off all the skids and swerves with
ease for four solid takes.
The fifth take didn’t go so swell.
"I just miscalculated the turn, and I forgot the fire hydrant was there, and, you know,
the fire hydrant, hey, meet the Maserati, and water was all in the car.”
A professional Maserati enthusiast told TMZ the repairs would likely cost around $12,000.
"And executive producer was like, 'Oh my god, this is going to cost us!
I'm putting myself in Time Out!'"