Head-Spinning Facts About the Worst Ideas in the History of Acting
Acting isn’t easy. If a production is lucky, they might be able to draw a great performance from their cast without physical injury, behind-the-scenes drama, or cringe-worthy script changes. But not every production is so lucky. Actors and writers alike have attempted, or just pitched, some wild ways to make movie (and TV) magic. Here are 42 baffling facts about weird to downright bad ideas in the history of acting.
Worst Ideas in the History of Acting Facts
42. From Spit-take to Take Down
Jim Carrey refused to ever break character while shooting the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon. For months, he was the legendary comedian. The film recreated Kaufman’s real-life feud with WWE wrestler Jerry Lawler on The David Letterman Show with the real Lawler actually present. Carrey demanded that Lawler put him in the wrestling hold that landed the real Kaufman in the hospital for three days. When Lawler—and the film’s insurance—denied Carrey his precious headlock, an enraged Carey spit in Lawler’s face, triggering a real physical fight.
41. Flipping the Bird
In the 1969 British film Kes, a young boy befriends a kestrel bird amidst a dystopic European backdrop. After an argument, the boy’s brother later kills the bird and dumps it in the trash. David Bradley’s reaction is startling authentic because he really befriended the bird-actor. The film’s director falsely informed him that his winged buddy had died in real life right before they filmed the scene. As “proof,” they had a real bird corpse brought for him to hold! And they never told him the truth themselves: one full year after filming, Bradley traveled to Scotland and found for himself that his bird friend was alive and well.
40. Bella Swan: FBI
An action-packed Twilight? It almost happened when studios first optioned Stephanie Meyer’s famous vampire novels. Imagine Kristen Stewarts’s Bella as an action heroine, or Robert Pattinson as a genuinely scary vampire who murders swarms of army commandos when he’s not fighting against his nemesis, a Korean FBI agent who hunts vampires across the country. Of course, the final version was a little more faithful to Meyer’s literary ethos of PG-13 violence and sparkles.
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