6 Iconic Movie Scenes That Happened by Accident
When filmmakers talk about "the magic of cinema," we assume that they're talking about the medium's ability to transport us into fantastical worlds of wonder and imagination, or some sappy shit like that. What they really mean is that, like in any job, accidents tend to happen when they're shooting a movie ... and sometimes those accidents turn out to be far better than what the director originally had in mind and are left in the film.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy -- Viggo Mortensen's Pain Was Real
What Was Supposed to Happen:
Viggo Mortensen was a last-minute replacement to play Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is kind of amazing considering that it's arguably the most important role. He pulled off the "risking life and limb to save the hobbits" thing like a champ, partially because he wasn't always acting.
For example, he actually murdered dozens of people over the course of those films.
The Happy Accident:
Due to a series of mishaps, miscalculations and God just straight up fucking with him, more often than not Mortensen really found himself in actual danger and/or anguish. For example, there's a scene in The Two Towers where Aragorn thinks that two of the hobbits are dead, angrily kicks a helmet and lets out a soul-scarring scream of grief.
However, that wasn't so much great acting as actual physical pain -- while kicking the helmet, Mortensen broke two toes and fell to his knees, not because the script required it, but probably because he simply couldn't stay on his feet anymore.
And that's why Aragorn is in a mobility scooter for the rest of the movie.
But hey, who needs toes? It's not like someone threw a knife at his face or something -- nope, that happened in The Fellowship of the Ring, when another actor misjudged a throw and accidentally flung a real knife at Mortensen's face at high velocity; according to the DVD commentary, Mortensen managed to swing his sword and block the knife, creating another unintentional badass moment for his character.
Finally, while filming the scene in The Two Towers where an unconscious Aragorn is floating down the river, Viggo got caught in an undertow and nearly drowned due to the weight of his armor, barely escaping with his life.
Peter Jackson, of course, kept all these accidents in the films because they were simply the best takes. One of the key factors of the success of the trilogy was the fact that it just felt more authentic than fantasy movies tend to be, and having the actors almost dying and literally screaming in pain certainly helped in that sense.
Being John Malkovich -- A Drunken Extra Attacks the Star
What Was Supposed to Happen:
In Being John Malkovich, a puppeteer called Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) finds a portal to actor John Malkovich's head and starts charging people to take the guy for a spin for 15 minutes. Eventually, Malkovich finds out what's going on, descends into the portal and ends up in what looks like the most fucked up Halloween party ever.
After leaving that place, Malkovich quite understandably freaks out and threatens Schwartz with litigation if he doesn't stop renting out his brain to strangers, storming off along the shoulder of the New Jersey turnpike.
The Happy Accident:
Drunk extras. According to the commentary by director Spike Jonze, some extras sneaked beer onto the set and got pleasantly plastered. The scene called for cars to just drive past Malkovich as he angrily walks away; however, one of the extras forgot that he wasn't a jock in an '80s high school comedy and yelled out "Hey Malkovich, think fast!" before lobbing a beer can at his head.
Malkovich's surprised yelp of pain and subsequent cradling of his head amused Jonze so much that he decided to keep the scene in the film. This isn't so surprising when you consider that this is the man who helped bring Jackass to our screens, so we already know that he revels in the pain of others.
But it worked beautifully; rather than being a scene about how angry John Malkovich is at the main character, it became a scene about how his life is falling apart around him. It helped us empathize with the actor, not to mention that the moment was also very much in line with the absurd humor of the screenplay (how did the guy even know it was Malkovich?).
In regards to the drunken extra, this inspired moment of sheer douchebaggery paid off in dividends -- since he now had a line in the movie, his pay rate was bumped up to $700 a day, that of a speaking role, and he was also now eligible to get his Screen Actors Guild card, which just goes to show that being a complete and utter dick is the only way to get ahead in Hollywood.
Casino Royale -- Daniel Craig's Iconic Beach Shot Was an Accident
What Was Supposed to Happen:
At the beginning of Casino Royale, the first James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig, 007 travels to the Bahamas to get information from a lackey of Le Chiffre, the main villain. Naturally, Bond decides to do that by seducing the lackey's hot wife, because he only knows two ways to talk to people: forceful interrogation or post-coital small talk.
"Sometimes the two sort of blend together, honestly."
In one scene, Bond was supposed to be swimming at the beach when he sees the wife riding on a horse and the two make eye contact. She was supposed to be the sexy one there, but that's not how it turned out ...
The Happy Accident:
Do a Google Image search for "Daniel Craig" and within the first 10 results you'll get this:
For millions of people (particularly women), that's what the phrase "Daniel Craig" brings to mind -- the man standing up out of the surf, in tiny blue shorts. And it's all due to a sandbank.
Craig says that while shooting the scene, he accidentally hit an awkwardly situated sandbank that forced him to stand up and walk out of the water, instead of just floating off as the script said, thus showcasing his sculpted torso and causing Bond-gasms in roughly half the audience.
The image of Craig stepping out of the water ended up being plastered all over the promotional material for the film, with many people assuming that it was a nod to Ursula Andress emerging from the beach in the first Bond movie ever, Dr. No ... or a reference to Halle Berry doing the same thing in the shittiest one, Die Another Day.
When Casino Royale was first announced, Bond fans all over the world boycotted the movie, since the filmmakers had not only decided to reboot the saga, but dared to cast some unwashed blond guy in the lead. The perceived homage to Bond's legacy likely helped win over many reluctant fans, at the same time letting the rest of the world know that this was a more rugged 007, and not just the same old shit.
But the main effect was on Daniel Craig's career: The scene single-handedly turned him into an international sex symbol. Craig said he realized right away that the moment would draw comparisons to Andress, but he didn't think that he "would be haunted by it for the rest of my life." Yeah, we're sure that all the booty he'll still be getting from that scene when he's 80 will be hard to cope with.
The Usual Suspects -- The Lineup Scene Was Supposed to Be Serious
What Was Supposed to Happen:
The Usual Suspects is about five criminals who meet at a police lineup and decide to commit a robbery together. In the lineup scene, the characters were simply supposed to step up and repeat a line, one by one -- what could possibly get five professional actors to botch something as simple as that?
The Happy Accident:
Benicio Del Toro's rancid farts. According to the DVD extras, while shooting this scene Del Toro was "flatulent the whole time."
Now we know why Gabriel Byrne's covering his nose.
As a result, the other actors kept cracking up while director Bryan Singer angrily told them to keep their shit together. It didn't help that, according to Kevin Spacey, the actors were intentionally trying to get the usually serious Gabriel Byrne to laugh, and even got him to do impersonations. Eventually Singer gave up and just left the actors' completely improvised interaction in the movie -- you can clearly see them trying not to giggle and utterly failing.
The weird thing is, their goofing off actually makes the rest of the movie work; the chemistry between the criminals in this scene really sells you on the fact that these five guys, for the most part strangers, would suddenly decide to team up and pull off a heist together. If that happened every time the police brought in suspects, they'd probably stop doing lineups.
Also, by showing these wildly different characters bonding through their mutual contempt for authority (and the universal hilarity of fart noises), the scene foreshadows the fact that, in the end, the entire story turns out to be about one clever criminal fucking with the police. And it's all because of Benicio Del Toro's butt.
In fact, pretty much everything Del Toro did in the movie was ad-libbed -- the character had few lines and was originally written for Harry Dean Stanton (you kids would know him as "old guy who talks to naked Bruce Banner in The Avengers"), but Del Toro decided that he should be a "black Chinese Puerto Rican Jew" who talks in mangled English, turning him into one of the most memorable parts of the movie.
The Godfather -- Luca Brasi's Character Is the Result of a Nervous Actor
What Was Supposed to Happen:
While filming The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola needed a big, intimidating guy to play Luca Brasi, a mob enforcer working for Don Corleone (Marlon Brando). Luckily for him, the set of the film happened to be frequented by actual mobsters and their bodyguards: One of them was a huge guy called Lenny Montana, who started fires for the mafia when he wasn't busy beating people up in his day job as world wrestling champion.
Coppola saw Montana and thought that he was perfect to play the fearless behemoth, since that's essentially what Montana was in real life. In his first scene, Brasi was supposed to meet Don Corleone in his office, congratulate him on the wedding of his daughter and pledge his loyalty to him.
The Happy Accident:
Marlon Brando. Montana was so nervous about just being in the same room as Brando that he kept getting choked up and messing up his lines. Brando was already an acting legend by then, so sharing a scene with him was like playing catch with Babe Ruth.
However, Coppola liked Montana's unexpectedly bumbling performance so much that he not only kept it in the movie, but in order to explain it, added another scene set right before this one where we see Brasi sitting outside Corleone's office nervously practicing his speech by talking to himself (only to mess it up anyway later on).
The result is a scene that made Don Corleone even more of a badass by implying that even a huge, imposing guy like Luca Brasi is intimidated by him. In the previous scene, Diane Keaton's character sees Brasi sitting alone and is instantly freaked out, but then Coppola tells us that the guy with the muscles is not the one we should be afraid of -- it's the man who controls him. Brasi being bad at acting helped make that point better than the dialogue did.
Midnight Cowboy -- A Reckless Driver Caused the Line "I'm Walkin' Here!"
What Was Supposed to Happen:
In Midnight Cowboy, Jon Voight plays Joe Buck, a small-town Texan who goes to New York City to become a hustler and ends up being the one who's hustled. Shortly after arriving, Buck gets scammed by Ratso, a crippled con man played by Dustin Hoffman who later wins him over with his charming personality and helps him become a gigolo.
In one scene, the sex cowboy and the crippled scammer were supposed to walk down a busy intersection, talking about the finer points of prostitution. Piece of cake, right?
The Happy Accident:
New York City. Since the filmmakers didn't have permits, the scene had to be shot with a hidden camera and carefully timed to coincide with the "Walk" signal. After about 15 failed takes, and just when the actors were finally getting the timing right, a cab driver blew past a red light and nearly ran them over. Hoffman reacted by slamming the car and yelling "I'm walkin' here!" before telling the driver to kindly fuck off.
So that was all improvised, and in fact, you can see that Ratso even loses his accent while yelling at the driver and hitting the car in a distinctly non-cripple-like manner.
"I'm walkin' here!" became one of the most memorable lines in cinematic history, according to the American Film Institute, and by far the best known part of a movie that includes Angelina Jolie's dad getting a blowjob from a guy in a movie theater. The scene perfectly defines Hoffman's vulnerable but short-tempered character and the whole "Welcome to New York" tone of the movie.
The veracity of this story has been disputed by a producer, but Hoffman himself confirms that it's real and adds that he nearly said "I'm acting here," because that's what he was doing up until the moment before the cab bumped into him, but he replaced "acting" with "walking" at the last second to avoid ruining the shot. Now try to watch that movie again without imagining the cab running both men over, then the film immediately fading to credits.
Sean rants incoherently on Twitter and writes film and game reviews over at Impulse Gamer. Dennis is trying to repent after stealing his friend's food. Check out his friend's Web series.
For more behind-the-scenes looks at your favorite movies, check out 5 Great Movie Scenes Made Possible by Reckless Endangerment and 6 Terrible Decisions That Gave Us Great Movie Moments.
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