There are some actors in Hollywood who are so good at their craft that they can make reading a phone book look compelling. Great actors can seamlessly transform their bodies, emotions, and voice to embody another person. However, sometimes their believability comes into question when they are playing characters that are highly intoxicated. The acting is so good that fans can't help but believe that the actor playing the part is actually inebriated.
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00:00A lot of things are legal in Hollywood, but cocaine and heroin?
00:04Yeah, still not so much.
00:06And when it comes to selling on-screen substance abuse, you can only get so far with the CGI
00:10high.
00:11Hollywood's prop masters still have to use ingenious practical effects to make fake drugs
00:16look like the real thing, without hurting the actors who have to put the stuff in their
00:20lungs, up their noses, or, uh, elsewhere.
00:31Here's what was really on the set in these movies where drugs were on the menu.
00:36Horrible bosses
00:38Colin Farrell is no stranger to doing fake cocaine in front of the camera, or real cocaine
00:42in real life for that matter, back when he was one of Hollywood's biggest party boys.
00:47But for horrible bosses, prop master Michael Bates had the actors snorting powdered lactose,
00:52a milk product that's so harmless, actors can inhale it without hurting themselves.
00:57That's good news for Farrell, who was reportedly so keen on staying in character that he would
01:01snort the fake cocaine between takes.
01:04Pineapple Express
01:06Despite Seth Rogen's outspoken advocacy for marijuana off-screen, the cast in the stoner
01:11flick Pineapple Express wasn't actually smoking the real thing, which just goes to show what
01:17a talented actor Bill Hader really is.
01:19Is this normal?
01:22Okay, prop-
01:23Prop master Jeff Butcher purchased the movie's fake weed in bulk from International Oddities,
01:28a company that specializes in bud without any THC, the substance that gets you high,
01:33so that actors can smoke it, a lot, without suffering any weird after-effects.
01:38Train spotting
01:40You won't be surprised to learn that Ewan McGregor and his castmates weren't shooting
01:43real heroin in Train Spotting.
01:45In fact, no human arms were punctured in the making of this film.
01:49Instead, the film's prop master Gordon Fitzgerald used a real syringe filled with dyed water,
01:55which was injected into a prosthetic arm.
01:57According to Fitzgerald, this method had a perk.
01:59You can draw the plunger up and down and it looks as if the blood is mixing with the liquid.
02:0521 Jump Street
02:06A fictional synthetic drug is central to the plot of 21 Jump Street, which stars Channing
02:11Tatum and Jonah Hill as cops who go undercover to stop the threat.
02:15"...goes by the street name H.F.S."
02:17"...Holy s***!"
02:20But while H.F.S. is a fabrication, Tatum and Hill still needed something to put in their
02:24mouths when it came time to film this scene where they get high to avoid blowing their
02:28cover.
02:29The solution?
02:30Communion-style dissolving wafers with a hint of yellow food covering, which melt on the
02:35tongue the same way as drugs like acid.
02:38The Wolf of Wall Street
02:40Needless to say, cocaine was featured heavily in The Wolf of Wall Street, which is set in
02:44the late 1980s.
02:45So when it came time to do lines, actors were given vitamin D powder, which is harmless
02:50to the body when ingested in small doses.
02:53There's just one catch.
02:55These were not small doses.
02:56"...I never had more vitamin D in my entire life.
02:59I think I could've lifted a car over my f***ing head."
03:03American Gangster
03:05Powdered heroin was central to the plot of the 2007 film American Gangster.
03:10Based on the life of career criminal Frank Lucas, who built his empire on a fortune made
03:15by smuggling heroin into the U.S. on military planes returning from the Vietnam War, it's
03:20also one of the most difficult drugs to fake on screen, which is why American Gangster's
03:24prop master used a substance called Manitol.
03:28Doctors use it to treat kidney conditions and reduce brain swelling, but it's also used
03:32by real-life drug dealers to cut heroin, making it a convincing choice.
03:37Scarface
03:38Not all fake cocaine is created equal, especially when the fake cocaine is actually baby laxative.
03:47That's right.
03:48In Scarface, prop masters used powdered baby laxative to stand in for the massive amount
03:53of cocaine that's bought, sold, and ingested by drug lord Tony Montana, played by Al Pacino.
03:59And while the substance didn't get anyone high, it did have certain other effects on
04:03the human body, so much so that no one would want to put it up their nose, according to
04:07actor Steven Bauer, who played Manny Rivera.
04:10What happens when you snort too much powdered baby laxative?
04:14Nobody's saying, but can't be good.
04:16What the f---- was that?
04:21The Breakfast Club
04:22Before people figured out how to make THC-free weed, oregano was the preferred stand-in for
04:28marijuana in movies like The Breakfast Club.
04:30So that's what they're smoking in this scene from John Hughes' classic film about a crew
04:34of misfits sentenced to high school detention on a Saturday.
04:37There's just one problem.
04:39Back in the day, people still had some pretty weird ideas about the physical effects of
04:42smoking up.
04:43Marijuana!
04:44The burning weed with its roots in hell.
04:49Thanks to the movie's prop master, the joint they're passing around looks legit, but nothing
04:53else about this scene is especially realistic.
04:56Half Nelson
04:57Ryan Gosling's Oscar-nominated performance as a drug-addicted teacher in New York City
05:02would have been wasted if Half Nelson's on-screen crack looked whack.
05:06But prop master Jeremy Balin found an ingenious solution, an off-white coffee mug that he
05:11broke up into about a million little pieces, then dyed in coffee.
05:16A piece of broken, stained porcelain would be set in front of a small ball of tobacco
05:20that smoked when lit, lending a realistic look to Gosling's fake crack pipe.
05:26American Beauty
05:28For all this talk of oregano and baby laxative, it's worth noting that Hollywood still does
05:33occasionally do its drugs the old-fashioned way.
05:36Like in this scene from American Beauty, where Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham gets stoned
05:41in a parking lot at a real estate convention.
05:43American Beauty director Sam Mendes said,
05:46"...there may or may not have been real pot available on that particular movie.
05:50I couldn't possibly comment."
05:51But Kevin Spacey's giggling fit kind of says it all.
05:55Honey, this...
05:55Ricky...
05:56This...
05:58This is Ricky...