20 Crazy Things You Never Knew About Your Favorite Movies

Movies are an intensely important part of our world culture, a combination of performance, visual, and written art, as well as music and just about every other form of artistic expression there is. They are so complex that we become completely focused on the experience of it all. At the same time, that means audiences often never get the fun little inside stories that surround these intricate works of moving artistry. Here are some fun facts about your favorite flicks that you may or may not already know about.

Not That Hungover

Everyone loves the gag that Ed Helms’ dentist in The Hangover is a real wild man when under the influence – in the first film he gets so drunk that he pulls out one of his own front teeth. For any other actor digital trickery would be needed, but not for Helms. The actor is actually missing that tooth in real life as it never grew during childhood; the rest of the time he wears a fake.

Up, Up, And Away!

Ever wonder how much of the Pixar film up is based in reality? It may surprise you to know that you could lift a small house into the air with balloons… but it would take 9 million of them.

Word By The Dollar

In the seminal film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid a salary of $15 million and spoke only 700 words – that’s $21,429 for every word spoken. To put that in perspective, it cost $85,716 to say the famous phrase “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Too Old For School

There is a reoccurring character in the Harry Potter franchise known as Moaning Myrtle, an 11 year-old girl who died and became a ghost that haunts one of the Hogwarts school bathrooms. Although the character is a preteen, she was portrayed in the films be Shirley Henderson who was 37 year-old at the time of filming.

A Mighty Fist

While filming the final fight scene in Rocky IV, Sylvester Stallone asked Dolph Lundgren to hit him for real. Stallone took such a massive hit to the chest from Lundgren that the hospital staff that treated him thought he had been hit by a car.

Clean Living

When Leonardo DiCaprio took on the lead role in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, he had a lot of learning to do to become lothario and drug addict Jordan Belfort. Since the Oscar-nominee had never done drugs, experts were hired to show him how to take various drugs and how he was supposed to react to them.

Bean And Gone

Lord of the Rings actor Sean Bean has a terrible fear of flying. He has such bad aviophobia that instead of taking the helicopter out for the movie’s mountainside location shoot with the rest of the cast, he would take a ski lift as high as he could and then hike the rest of the way… in full costume.

Jedi Rap Master

While developing the Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace, George Lucas had his heart set on casting famous rapper Tupac as a Jedi Knight. Unfortunately the music star died before he got a chance to audition to take part in the franchise.

Brought To Heel

In the 2004 film Troy, the legendary hunk Brad Pitt played legendary warrior Achilles, but the two had far more in common than just being famous for their respective prowesses. During Troy’s filming, Pitt managed to injury his Achilles tendon — the body part so named for his famous hero’s even more famous weakness.

Closer My God To Thee

In Mel Gibson’s notorious film The Passion of the Christ Jesus was played by American actor Jim Caviezel. Not only does the actor share the same initials as his characters, he was also the same age as Jesus when he was crucified, 33 years-old. Also, during one of the crucifixition filming scenes, Caviezel was struck by lightning while hanging on the cross.

Better Than CGI

In the film Alien: Resurrection, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley has a famous scene where she is attacked while playing basketball and, before exiting the scene, makes an impossible basket from half-court while blindly chucking the ball behind her head, getting nothing but net. While you might think it digital trickery was used to make this scene possible, you’d be wrong – Weaver made the shot for real after only a few takes.

Seriously Bond

The studios and those who owned the rights to the James Bond books and films were so protective of their character, they added a rather unusual clause in the contract of Bond actor Pierce Brosnan. While the actor was playing Bond, from 1995-2002, he was not allowed to wear a full tuxedo in any other movie he participated in.

A Case Of The Giggles

The famous line-up scene in Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects wasn’t intended to be full of laughter. The script actually called for the men to be straight-faced, but actor Benicio del Toro had such a bad case of uncontrollable flatulence that the other four men couldn’t contain themselves, so the director decided to keep it in the film.

Oscar To Oscar

Robert Downey, Jr. gained a lot of popularity for his hilarious role in the comedic Hollywood criticism Tropic Thunder. In the film he played ultra-obsessed Kirk Lazarus, an eccentric, method acting multi-Oscar-winner. In real life, Downey, Jr. was actually nominated for a real Oscar for the role.

A Child’s Horror

The Toy Story movies might seem like harmless kiddie fare, but they contain references you may not have noticed before unless you happen to be a die-hard Kubrick plan. Both the original story and its sequel Toy Story 3 contain all sorts of little winks to The Shining, including the use of the famous geometric carpet pattern and the recurrence of the number 237.

Not That Alien

In the Star Wars universe, Chewbacca, the largely popular sidekick of hero Han Solo, is a wookie, one of the native beings from the planet Kashyyyk. While Chewie may be an alien, the suit that actor Peter Mayhew wears to play him is actually made out of human hair.

Over The Lips

In the film Singin’ In The Rain, Debbie Reynolds plays an actress who dubs her voice in for another actress in a movie; the main actress demands credit for everything and no credit for Reynolds’ character, until the truth is finally discovered. Ironically, Reynolds didn’t even do all of her own singing in the movie – actress Betty Noyes did and she never received proper credit for it.

The Doctor Is In

Ken Jeong, famous for his role in the Hangover movies, made one of his first on-screen appearances in the baby comedy Knocked Up as the doctor who delivers the main character’s child. Aside from being an extremely funny actor, Jeong happens to be a real doctor too – an MD with a license to practice internal medicine in the state of California.

True Fear?

When it came out, the low-budget found-footage horror film The Blair Witch Project was called my many who saw it as one of the scariest movies ever made. While that may be debatable it certainly sparked a lot of morbid interest in people. There were so many people in the woods where the movie was shot that they scared off all the animals and made it the worst hunting season on record in that area of the state.

One Killer Hero

In the Halloween movies, serial murderer Michael Myers is a very horrible guy who wears an incredibly creepy mask to hide what he really looks like. Before it was transformed with a coat of white paint, that mask wasn’t meant to portray a villain but a hero – it’s actually a Captain Kirk’s (William Shatner) mask.