37 On-Set “Mistakes” That Actually Ended Up Being Genius Movie Moments
1.In Knives Out, the ending shot — where Marta drinks from a cup that says “my house, my rules, my coffee” — was unplanned. Director Rian Johnson called it “kind of … a happy accident.” He said, “I knew I wanted her to like sip tea in the final shot, and I had had separately the idea of ‘My house, my rules, my coffee,’ as that first shot in the movie — after that first big dramatic shot of the house, breaking the tension with kind of a goofy modern joke mug.” He then came up with bringing the mug back at the end, and as they were filming, he asked Ana to take a sip of tea – realizing that the words “my house” perfectly came into frame.
2.In Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Peg wassupposed to smash the glass wheel — but she accidentally did it before she was supposed to. There was only one glass wheel, and director Rian Johnson was explaining how she’d only have one chance when Jessica Henwick actually dropped it and looked into the camera in terror at what she’d done. Luckily, they were already filming, and her real panic ended up being perfect: “That’s the take that’s in the movie,” Johnson revealed.
3.In Home Alone, Kevin was supposed to move his hands from his face before his iconic scream. However, on the first take, he kept his hands on his face, and director Chris Columbus and editor Raja Gosnell thought it was hilarious and kept it in.
4.In The Hateful Eight, Kurt Russel smashed an antique 150-year-old guitar (it was supposed to be swapped out before they actually filmed the smashing), causing Jennifer Jason Leigh to shout in shock and turn towards the camera, as she knew they hadn’t swapped it yet. Her panicked reaction was real, and it was kept in the film. “It ended up being great for the scene, but very sad for the guitar, and for my guitar teacher, and for me,” Leigh later said.
5.Harrison Ford’s character in The Fugitive had a limp because Ford actually tore a ligament in his knee early into filming and refused to get it treated. The limp ended up adding to the realism and tension.
6.Michael Caine wasn’t supposed to be speechless when his character, Alfred, first sees a video of the Joker. Caine said, “I had to do this bit where Batman and I watch a video which The Joker sends to threaten us. So I’d never seen him, and then he came on the television in the first rehearsal and I completely forgot my lines. I flipped, because it was so stunning, it was quite amazing.” In the final scene, Caine doesn’t speak.
7.Daniel Craig’s suave water bottle catch in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo happened completely by accident. According to the DVD commentary, on the sixteenth or so take of the below scene, he accidentally knocked over a water bottle and then “deftly” caught it “like Gene Kelly.” Director David Fincher immediately knew he wanted it in the film, saying, “I don’t know what we could hope for that would be better than that.”
Watch the moment in GIF form here. (Sorry it’s so dark — why don’t we light movies anymore???)
8.In The Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers, Viggo Mortensen broketwotoes while kicking a helmet. His scream of anguish, followed by his fall to his knees, was real. As this cry of pain matched Aragorn’s emotional pain in the scene, it ended up being perfect.
9.Julie Stiles wasn’t meant to start crying as she read her character’s poem in 10 Things I Hate About You. She got emotional while reading it, and the tears came naturally. “[The tears] were not intentional. On some level I knew that I was supposed to be somewhat emotional, because when we did the table read I remember I just said the poem, and I could have been reciting the phone book. But [when it came to filming], I never expected that I was going to start crying. I don’t know why I did, whether it connected to something going on at the time, or if I was just overwhelmed by the whole experience of making my first big movie.” It ended up being one of the most memorable moments of the film.
10.In Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio flubbed a line where he was supposed to direct Winslet’s character to lie on the couch during her nude scene. He instead indicated she should go “over on the bed,” then corrected himself to say “the couch.” The moment made his character Jack appear flustered, which was perfect for the scene.
11.Joaquin Phoenix studied wild animals in captivity for his prison cell scene in The Master. Smashing the toilet wasn’t in the script; it was just a part of him going berserk. “I didn’t intend to break the thing,” Phoenix said. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
12.According to a story Jane Russell recounted inBlonde Heat: The Sizzling Screen Career of Marilyn Monroe, she was not supposed to fall in the pool during “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?” in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. One of the dancers, Ed Fury, accidentally pushed her in with his foot. He was then fired because he tried to claim co-choreographer credit for the mistake.
13.The famous Midnight Cowboy scene where Ratso slams his hands down on a taxi that almost hits him and yells, “I’m walking here!” was the result of an accident. They didn’t have the money to create a full set with extras, so they used a “stolen shot” — using a hidden camera on a real street. At one point the characters cross the street — they had rehearsed and timed the dialogue so they could cross when the signal was green. But in the first shot, a car ran the light and almost hit them. Staying in character, Ratso yelled, “I’m walking here!”
14.The Rocky training scene where Rocky is thrown an orange in the Italian market happened similarly — the passerby thought he was a real runner and really did throw him an orange. Sylvester Stallone caught it and went with it.
15.According to the documentary I Am Heath Ledger, the real reason Heath Ledger licked his lips so much as the Joker in The Dark Knight was to keep his makeup from coming off. It ended up becoming a signature part of his character.
16.In 1917, Schofield wasn’t supposed to fall — an extra ran into him, causing him to fall over. He got back up again and kept running. Screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns said she screamed when he fell, and that it was like “watching your team mess up a field goal at the Super Bowl.” When George MacKay got up, director Sam Mendes yelled to keep filming, “and out of that came a sort of movie magic, I think, personally,” Wilson-Cairns said. “I’m obviously a little biased, but it’s one of my favorite scenes of the film.”
17.The famous shot of Daniel Craig as James Bond walking out of the water in Casino Royale was not meant to happen. “It was actually by accident,” he said. “Where we filmed, off the Bahamas, it’s just one of those places where there is a sand shelf and the sand shelf happens to be three feet deep. Because the idea was, I was supposed to swim in and sort of float off, but I swim in and stand up. And it was just one of those things.”
18.Calvin slicing open his hand in Django Unchained was accidental — DiCaprio actually sliced it, and kept going with the scene despite bleeding. It made the scene even more terrifying, and Calvin seem even more unhinged.
19.The assistant cameraperson accidentally opened the magazine in one of the last scenes of The Last Temptation of Christ, causing there to be edge fog. However, director Martin Scorsese ended up loving it, saying, “The edge fog became the resurrection.”
20.Maria’s trip in “I Have Confidence” in The Sound of Musicwas alsounscripted, but it ended up being the perfect amount of irony for the number, as well as demonstrating how poorly prepared she actually was.
21.In Almost Famous, William asking Penny to ask him to come to Morocco with her again was actually Patrick Fugit asking Kate Hudson to give him the line again because he wanted to say his line again, only more excited. However, this take — where he becomes more excited after the second time she asks the question — was so sweet that it made it to the final cut.
22.The sound of lightsabers in Star Wars was actually created through a happy accident. When trying to come up with how they’d sound, sound designer Ben Burtt walked by his TV with a tape recorder with a broken mic cable, and it picked up the sound and amplified it, creating a buzzing noise Burtt used in the film.
23.The “tears” reflected on Robert Blake’s face in In Cold Blood were actually by accident — it was noticed by Conrad L. Hall, the director of photography for the film, as he was setting up the lighting of the scene using a stand-in, and he decided it was perfect for the scene.
24.The cigarette ash wasn’t supposedto hit McManus in the eye in The Usual Suspects — it was an accident, and Baldwin’s reaction is real.
25.And the laughing in the lineup scene wasn’t supposed to happen either — it was meant to be serious. “We were supposed to be very stoic, very unimpressed, unintimidated,” Kevin Pollak, who played Hockney, said. But “we would lose it over and over and over.” Pollak also claimed in the DVD commentary that part of the reason they laughed was that Benicio del Toro “farted like 12 takes in a row,” which created one of the most memorable scenes in the film.
26.The tender moment when Adrian hesitates to kiss Rocky actually occurred because actor Talia Shire was sick. She was anxious to kiss him because she didn’t want to get him sick, but her reluctance ended up being perfect for the scene.
28.The Children of Men scene when blood splatters on the camera was a complete accident — it happened on their last chance to film the six-minute continuous scene. Director Alfonso Cuarón yelled “cut” when the blood splattered onto the camera, but the assistant director didn’t hear him because an explosion went off at the same time. They continued with the shot, which the cinematographer called a “miracle.”
29.The stuntman filming the scene of McClane falling down the elevator shaft in Die Hardactually losthis grip, leading to the fall being much longer and more scary than it was supposed to be.
30.This Pearl Harbor scene from Tora! Tora! Tora! featuring people running from an exploding plane that happened by accident. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and the stunt people running from the flames were really running for their lives. The footage was that much more terrifying because it was real. “Shrapnel was flying everywhere,” stunt person Phil Adams said, describing what it was like to film the sequence. “It was probably some of the best footage that we shot that day.”
31.Timothy Dalton accidentally looked at the camera in this Hot Fuzz scene — according to the DVD commentary, the moment was kept in and accompanied with a “ka-ching” to make it seem intentional and meta.
32.Actor Patrick Scott Lewis in Zodiacactuallyhad indigestion during one scene – him holding his stomach was kept in as director David Fincher thought it made his fear seem more realistic. “I just thought, that seemed so real that somebody would actually kinda [have] a moment of indigestion when they see a guy in a black hood and a .45 automatic,” Fincher said in the commentary.
33.The helicopter crash in Attack of the Killer Tomatoeswas not meantto happen. It really did accidentally crash and burst into flames…which was caught on film. So, they decided they might as well use it.
34.The cat Don Corleone creepily (yet iconically) pets in The Godfather was not in the script. Director Francis Ford Coppola spotted the stray on set and handed it to Marlon Brando (who loved animals) for the scene. In fact, it almost ruined multiple takes from purring too loudly.
35.Another one from The Godfather — Lenny Montana was so terrified to act alongside Marlon Brando that he tripped up on his lines in the scene where his character Luca Brasi greets Don Corleone. Coppola saw this and decided to make his anxiety a part of his character, adding in an additional scene in which Brasi practices greeting Don Corleone. This made Brasi far more layered and memorable.
36.According to the commentary for American Beauty, the remote control car hitting Carolyn was a complete accident — but it was so perfect it ended up in the film.
37.And finally, the swastika falling in Inglourious Basterds was accidental — the fire burned wayyy hotter than expected and caused it to fall.
