50 Times Directors Caught Actors Completely Off Guard For The Sake Of A Scene

When making a movie, things don't always go as planned. Several directors improvise and modify the script on the spot. They bring more drama or comedy to the action by tricking or scaring the actors, having some fun with the cast, and sometimes incidents are totally accidental. Many directors will go out of their way to get the best out of their actors, and sometimes they even go a little too far. Thankfully, most actors understand that the deception was for the sake of the movie.

In the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the children were kept in the dark for several scenes in order to get genuine reactions. The director didn't let the children see Gene Wilder until the scene where we first see Willy Wonka. 

While filming Titanic, the actors knew the water would be cold but weren't told just how cold the water would be. In the scene where Rose is looking for Jack, and she is shivering and shaking, it's because she really was that cold. 

The director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was Michel Gondry, and he would often tell some of the cast members to do things that the others weren't expecting. There were several scenes where Jim Carrey was told to be serious, but then Kate was encouraged to play up the comedy. 

In the film Mary Poppins, the child actors playing Jane and Michael didn't know that Mary's carpet bag had magical properties. Karen Dotrice, who played Jane, stated that the crew went to special lengths to make sure their reactions were real. 

The film E.T. was filmed in chronological order, and none of the children were shown the puppet until they filmed those scenes. Steven Spielberg was the director, and he also encouraged the children to improvise as much as possible. 

In the film IT, Bill Skarsgard played Pennywise, the horrible clown monster. The child actors were kept away from Pennywise so that their first terrifying reactions would be caught on camera. 

In the film Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, the director, Francis Lawrence, wanted to pull emotion out of actress Jennifer Lawrence. He decided to play Peeta's interviews during some of Lawrence's scenes because he knew that she missed working with Josh Hutcherson. 

The Blair Witch Project was filmed in just eight days and was presented as recovered footage from three filmmakers who'd disappeared after searching for the Blair Witch. While filming, the actors worked basically 24/7 and were even deprived of food. 

While filming Les Miserables, the director wanted to recreate the revolutionary spirit. The actors were told to build a barricade in ten minutes while the camera rolled. The actors had no idea where the cameras were, and the scene looked like complete chaos. 

To prepare for Saving Private Ryan, the director sent all the main cast members to a harsh ten-day boot camp, except for Matt Damon. The fact that Matt was back home relaxing created a divide. 

In Die Hard, the last scene shows Alan Rickman's character falling from the Nakatomi Tower to his death. Rickman was dropped from around twenty-five feet above onto an airbag but was told he would be dropped after he counted down from three. 

While filming The Exorcist, director William Friedkin wanted to have authentic reactions from the actors. He was finding it difficult to get the actors to portray certain emotions without them looking corny or unbelievable.

In the film Alien, Ridley Scott decided not to tell the actors everything about the chest-bursting scene. They knew that something would emerge from his chest but what they didn't know was how much fake blood was going to be coming out of the chest. 

Jay Baruchel stars in the film Knocked Up, and the director, Judd Apatow, made a deal with him. Jay was terrified of rollercoasters, and there was a scene where the guys were riding a rollercoaster. 

One of Daniel Radcliffe's most embarrassing parts of Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire was the first dance at the Yule Ball. Daniel was too busy filming the tournament scenes that he didn't have time to attend choreography classes. 

In the film Call Me By Your Name, director Luca Guadaningo only had a small window to shoot the waterfall scene. The waterfall was actually a hydroelectric dam that opened just once a year. 

The director of the Marvel movie Endgame wanted to make sure that there would be no leaks. As a result, they didn't tell many of the actors that they were attending Tony Stark's funeral. Instead, most of the cast thought they were part of a wedding scene. 

On the show The Office, Oscar Nunez had no idea that Steve Carrell was going to actually kiss him, and neither did the rest of the cast. Steve Carrell's character, Michael, was supposed to just hug Oscar, go in for a kiss, back out, and then kiss him on the forehead. 

In the film The Exorcist, Jason Miller played Father Karras and was only told that Regan would be projectile vomiting on his chest. However, he wasn't told the truth because the thick green pea soup vomit spewed out and went right in his face. 

In the television series Glee, there is an episode where Santana thought Finn was the one who outed her and slapped him. However, the director had privately told Naya Rivera to slap Cory Monteith as hard as she could. 

In the series The Good Place, four out of the six main actors weren't told about the huge twist at the end of season one. The finale revealed that while the gang thought they were in the good place, they were actually in the bad place the entire time. 

Before the film Cruel Intentions began filming, actress Reese Witherspoon turned down the role of Annette. She didn't agree with how the character was written by the screenwriters. 

In the popular film A Christmas Story, the dogs ruin the turkey, so the family goes to eat at one of the only places open. They ended up at a Chinese restaurant for Christmas dinner. 

In the film Prometheus, the snake-like creature kind of resembled a face-hugger and was a nasty creature. The creature ends up attacking one cast member and is replaced with a dummy. 

In the film Starship Troopers, Dina Meyer questioned why there needed to be a nude scene in the movie, the shower scene. She argued with director Peter Verhoeven continuously about the nude scene. 

In the film, The Birds, director Alfred Hitchcock and his crew lied to the leading lady, Tippi Hedren. He told her that they would use mechanical birds, but they malfunctioned. 

In the film Noah's Ark, director Michael Curtiz was very dedicated to extras and actors doing their own stunts. He wanted them to do their own stunt work for the flood scene but didn't tell them because he didn't want to scare them away. 

The Goonies is a popular film that was released in 1985, with Richard Donner as the director. Donner wanted a genuine reaction from the child stars when they first saw the One-Eyed Willy's pirate ship. 

In the film Fight Club, there are a lot of fight scenes and punches thrown. However, the director wanted the punches to be more realistic, so he told Ed Norton to punch Brad Pitt as hard as he could. 

One of the most iconic scenes in the film Pretty Woman is when Richard Gere's character gives Julia Robert's character a pricey diamond necklace. 

There is a scene in the film The Princess Bride where Count Rugen hits Wesley over the head with the butt of his sword and knocks him unconscious. The director wanted Christopher Guest to hit Cary Elwes in the head for real, and he did. 

In Netflix's Haunting of Hill House, one of the most memorable moments was not just a shock to the audience. In the scene when sisters Lulu and Theo are driving back to their terrifying childhood home to save their brother Luke from becoming the house's next victim, the women are arguing because Lulu thinks Theo is having an affair with her husband. 

Director Ridley Scott also surprised his cast in Prometheus in another scene involving the snake-like creature. The first character to meet their gruesome ending is biologist Millburn. The Hammerpede creature gets into his spacesuit and goes down his throat, and kills him. 

In the film Poltergeist, the director left out certain details about a scene involving JoBeth Williams. In the mud pool scene, Williams didn’t know that the skeletons in the mud with her were real skeletons. Plastic skeleton replicas were very expensive to make, so they found real skeletons. 

The film The Rocky Horror Picture Show is full of twists and surprises. There were even surprises for the actors. Richard O’Brien and Patricia Quinn played siblings Riff Raff and Magenta, and during the dinner party scene, they were served a mystery meat. 

In the film Kes, director Ken Loach, a young British filmmaker, lied to the young actor. He wanted to get a genuine performance from David Bradley. So, he told Bradley that Hardy, the bird, would be legitimately killed and that his corpse would be used in the scene where Billy finds his companion dead in a bin. 

Actor George C. Scott gets tricked while filming Dr. Strangelove. Scott was hesitant about playing the part of General Buck Turgidson too big, so Stanley Kubrick encouraged him to dial up his performance. 

In the film Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone was involved in a very controversial scene. One of the most iconic scenes is when Stone uncrosses and crosses her legs in a room full of men during an interrogation. She was told to take off her underwear and that her private area would be visible on film. The director lied to Stone because it was very visible and caused problems in her career. 

The vomit to the eyes wasn't the only surprise during the filming of The Exorcist. Ellen Burstyn plays the character of Reagan's mother, and she was going to be yanked across the room by the creepy demon powers possessing her daughter. 

In the 1969 film Kes, Billy Casper is a boy that has a difficult life, being bullied and neglected. There is a scene where a group of schoolboys is hit by a teacher. 

In the film, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy's reaction when she first enters Narnia is genuine. The director intentionally didn't allow the young actress to see the set until they filmed those scenes. 

Will Ferrell stars in the film Elf, and his reactions during the Jack-in-the-box scene were genuine. Ferrell plays Buddy and often finds himself put in situations that test his elf-ish cheer and strength. 

In the film Boyz N the Hood, director John Singleton surprised the actors. Cuba Gooding Jr. stars in the film as Tre, and Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett portray Tre's parents. One iconic scene is the gang conflict on a Crenshaw block, where rival crews face off in a verbal confrontation but walk away without coming to blows. 

Mike Nichols is the director of the film The Graduate. In the film's final scene, he managed to get the actors' true reactions by just not telling them when he was going to cut. There was nothing in the script that would imply their facial expressions changing; he just had the camera running to feel their energy naturally dissipating. 

Jaws is an iconic film, and it was directed by Steven Spielberg. He wasn't happy with how some of the scenes were looking, so he did something that an actor wasn't planning for.

The film The Champ is a 1931 sports drama film and stars child actor Jackie Cooper as the son of a washed-up heavyweight champion. The director had to get the emotion out of the nine-year-old Cooper. He went a little extreme and used a tragedy almost to punish him in order to make him cry. 

Quentin Tarantino is the director of the film Inglorious Basterds. In the scene where Diane Kruger's character gets choked to death by the Nazi, played by Christopher Waltz, the director decided that the best way to make it seem real was to have the character actually being choked. 

In the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the director decided to surprise the cast and audience. The actors and crew were originally told that Zoe Saldana's character, Anamaria, would make an appearance. 

The scene "I am Your Father" from The Empire Strikes Back is a legendary moment in cinema. What is interesting is that the cast didn't even know the twist that Darth Vader was Luke's father. They found out when the final film was released.