Arnold Schwarzenegger earned $15 million for speaking a total of 700 words of dialogue — which breaks down to $21,429 per word. "Hasta la vista, baby"? That cost $85,716.
Then-struggling actor George Clooney auditioned five times for the part of sexy hitchhiker J.D., a role which director Ridley Scott ultimately gave to Brad Pitt, catapulting his career. Others in contention for the cowboy role: Scott Baio, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Christopher Atkins, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Alec Baldwin.
The giant Tyrannosaurus rex occasionally malfunctioned when it rained. Producer Kathleen Kennedy recalls, "The T. rex went into the heebie-jeebies sometimes. Scared the crap out of us. We'd be, like, eating lunch, and all of a sudden a T. rex would come alive. At first, we didn't know what was happening, and then we realized it was the rain. You'd hear people start screaming."
When Forrest (Tom Hanks) gets up to talk at the Vietnam rally in Washington, you can't hear him because the microphone plug is pulled. According to Hanks, Forrest says, "Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that."
William H. Macy begged the directors for the role of Jerry Lundegaard, performing two readings for the part. When the Coen brothers didn't get back to him, Macy tracked them down in New York and told them, "I'm very, very worried that you are going to screw up this movie by giving this role to somebody else. It's my role, and I'll shoot your dogs if you don't give it to me." He was joking, of course.
Sigourney Weaver actually made the behind-the-back, half-court basketball shot successfully after two weeks of basketball tutoring. When the day came to shoot the scene, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted to have the ball dropped in from above, after capturing Weaver throwing it, rather than wait for her to sink the shot herself, as that "would probably take about 200 takes." Weaver insisted that she could get the shot in herself — and sank the shot on the very first take.
Then 5-year-old actor Jonathan Lipnicki, who played Ray Boyd, showed up on set one day telling everyone that the "human head weighs 8 pounds." Cameron Crowe liked it so much he wrote it into the script.
Kate Winslet flashed Leonardo DiCaprio during their first meeting to break the ice, after finding out she had to pose nude for him in their now famous portrait scene.
One of the Farrelly brothers mooned Cameron Diaz and Lin Shaye during the filming of the scene where the two actresses look downward after Puffy the dog jumps out the window.
Shaving razors play key roles in the film. When Liam Neeson's character Qui-Gon Jinn uses a high-tech "communicator" device, it's actually a redecorated Sensor Excel Razor for Women. The sound of the hovering battle tanks used by the battle droids was created by running an electric razor around a metal salad bowl and then digitally lowering the pitch.
After the copyright warning on the Fight Club DVD, there is another warning from Tyler Durden, which appears only for a second: "If you are reading this, then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned ... Tyler."
To make himself look like an average, out-of-shape, middle-aged man for the scenes in the beginning of the film, Tom Hanks didn't exercise and allowed himself to grow pudgy. Production was then halted for a year so he could lose 50 pounds and grow out his hair for his time spent on the deserted island.
The cast often had to fly to remote shoot locations by helicopter. But Sean Bean was afraid of flying. So, when the crew shot the scenes of the Fellowship crossing the snowy mountains, Bean would spend two hours every morning climbing from the base of the mountain to the set near the top, already dressed as Boromir. The cast and crew would pass him as they flew up.
Martin Scorsese ends the film with a shot of the New York skyline including the World Trade Center Towers even though the film was finished after the buildings were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Scorsese chose to end with that shot rather than continue with a skyline without the WTC because the movie is supposed to be about the people who built New York not those who tried to destroy it.
The items on Austin Powers' briefly-glimpsed "Things to Do Before I Die" list include: 1. Become international man of mystery 2. Save world from certain doom 3. Find true love 4. Go to outer space 5. Travel through time backward and forward 6. Be cryogenically frozen 7. Catch Dr. Evil in the first act 8. Threesome with Japanese twins 9. Earn Daddy's respect.
According to an interview he gave to Newsweek, Jim Caviezel was struck by lightning while filming the Sermon on the Mount scene.
Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Katharine Hepburn made her the first performer to win an Oscar for playing a real-life Oscar winner.
During the formal dinner scene, Johnny Depp placed a "fart machine" under Julie Christie's chair. He had a remote control to trigger a fart sound from the device. In the scene, the children are laughing more at that than from playing with the spoons.
In order to acquaint himself with his three lead actors, director Alfonso Cuarón had each of them write an essay about their characters from a first-person point of view. Emma Watson, in true Hermione fashion, went a little overboard and wrote a 16-page essay. Daniel Radcliffe wrote a simple one-page summary, and Rupert Grint never even turned his in.
For the scene where Heath Ledger strips down and jumps into a lake, Ang Lee intended to edit out any actual frontal nudity. But a paparazzo took photos of Ledger with a digital camera, and the photos appeared on the Internet and in some media outlets. The full frontal scene is included in the Australian and European versions of the film, and features Ledger and a stunt double for Jake Gyllenhaal jumping into a lake from a rock.
Scarlett Johansson was pregnant during filming. So, many of her scenes were scheduled early before she began to show. To help hide her pregnancy later in filming, three stunt doubles were hired, causing much confusion among the other actors since, according to them, all of the stunt women looked very similar to Johansson. Chris Evans stated that it got to the point where he would say hello and start a conversation with one of them, only to realize that the person he was talking to wasn't Johansson. Ultimately, CGI was used in some scenes to hide Johansson's belly
On the first day of filming, Meryl Streep told Anne Hathaway, "I think you're perfect for the role. I'm so happy we're going to be working together." Then she paused and followed up, "That's the last nice thing I'll say to you." And it was.
Screenwriter David Seidler stammered as a child and was inspired by King George VI's wartime speech. As an adult, he wrote Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (widow of George VI) for permission to use the King's story to create a film. The Queen Mother asked him not to during her lifetime, saying the memories were too painful. Seidler respected her request. At age 73, he was the oldest person ever to win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for this film.
Matthew McConaughey's scenes were shot on the second week of filming. The chest-beating and humming performed were improvised and are part of an actual warm-up he performs before acting. Leonardo DiCaprio saw it during filming, and the brief shot of his turning away uneasily from the camera was actually his looking at Martin Scorsese for approval. DiCaprio encouraged the director to include it in the scene and later claimed it "set the tone" for the rest of the film.
When the movie was promoted with a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, several fans camped outside the hall the day before the panel in order to get seats. In the middle of the night, the fans were woken up by cast members Lee Pace and Andy Serkis, who greeted the waiting fans and delivered autographs and photos for hours. In the end, Pace passed out from exhaustion and shared a mattress with a fan.
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