10 Tiny Details Actors Requested For Movies
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00:00It's no secret that A-list actors can get a little bit over-eager with their on-set requests.
00:04Some demand millions of dollars in expenses, others a very specific selection of on-set cuisine,
00:10but there are some actors who have had some very weirdly specific demands before agreeing to do
00:16their work. Now, none of these details drastically altered their respective movie, plot or character
00:21in any major way, but they clearly meant something to the actor all the same. I'm Josh from
00:26WhatCulture.com and these are 10 tiny details actors requested for movies.
00:30Number 10. Ben Affleck requested not to wear a Yankees baseball cap in Gone Girl.
00:35As much as David Fincher might be an exacting director who often demands dozens of takes from
00:40his actors, he came into conflict with Ben Affleck while shooting Gone Girl for a wholly more petty
00:46reason. The scene in question called for Affleck's character to wear a New York Yankees hat while
00:51attempting to maintain a low profile at an airport. Affleck though, a die-hard fan of
00:56the Boston Red Sox, a team which has a historic rivalry with the Yankees, just flat out refused,
01:02requesting that he wear any other hat instead. Of the incident, Affleck commented,
01:06quote,
01:07I said, David, I love you. I would do anything for you, but I will not wear a Yankees hat. I just can't.
01:13I can't wear it because it's going to become a thing, David. I will never hear the end of it. I can't
01:18do it and I couldn't put it on my head, end quote. According to Fincher on the movie's home video
01:23commentary, production was shut down for four days while he and Affleck hashed out the disagreement,
01:28though you might have just been joking on that. Either way, Affleck got what he wanted and,
01:32to be fair, he was kind of right as well. With the amount of stick that he gets in the press,
01:36he wouldn't have heard the end of this from the tabloids.
01:399. Sam Neill requested an Aboriginal Australian flag on his uniform, Event Horizon,
01:44For his role as Dr. William Weir in cult sci-fi horror film, Event Horizon,
01:49Sam Neill made a small yet frankly ingenious costume recommendation to director Paul W.S.
01:55Anderson. With the Doctor being an Australian, the character wore a patch on his uniform bearing
02:00the country's flag, though Neill asked that the flag receive a futuristic alteration,
02:05replacing the Union Jack in the top left corner with that of an Aboriginal flag. Neill felt that this
02:10was the way that the flag should look by the year 2047, renouncing the country's colonial ties while
02:16paying tribute to those who first made Australia their home. Now we'll have to wait to see whether
02:21or not Neill's look towards the future comes to fruition, but it sure is a neat character flourish
02:26either way.
02:268. Bryce Dallas Howard requested high heels for just one scene, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom.
02:32No matter what you thought of the first Jurassic World, you'll likely remember all the controversy
02:36surrounding the footwear choice of Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire, who spends the movie fleeing
02:41from bloodthirsty dinosaurs in freaking high heels. Like fair news, that's pretty badass, you know?
02:47Still, it was a decision which received plenty of flack from fans, and so for the sequel Fallen Kingdom,
02:53the decision was made to show Claire changing her heels into some more practical boots early on.
02:58But one to never give in, Howard insisted that the film feature just a single scene with Claire
03:03back in the heels, logically opting for the early scene in which Claire is shown arriving at her
03:08office. Of the moment, Howard said, quote,
03:10In the first scene, I'm wearing high heels, and it was written like, Claire's wearing sneakers.
03:15Like, specifically, Claire's wearing sneakers. And I just circled that when I was reading it,
03:21and I was like, no, no, no, it's an office. Claire would wear heels, end quote.
03:25Number 7. Robert De Niro refused to use money on camera unless it was real. Good fellas.
03:30Robert De Niro has a reputation of being a bit of a grump on movie sets,
03:34but this one specific demand he made while making Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is a prime example
03:39of an actor just being a little bit difficult. Playing a veteran gangster, he and his fellow
03:44cast members handled plenty of cash across the movie, living up to their explosive lifestyle,
03:48pulling heists, and of course tipping doormen. However, De Niro decided that the prop cash used
03:53in the movie just wasn't for him. It was too fake, so he insisted on using real money in every scene he
03:59handled cash in. Instead of driving down to the bank and getting some of his own out for the scenes
04:03though, you know, considering this is very much a him problem as the use of real cash on sets isn't
04:08usually allowed, it was the prop master who had to give him 5,000 real dollars for him to carry around
04:15in his scenes. Telling the story to GQ, he said, quote,
04:19The only guy who uses real money in the movie is De Niro. He had like $5,000 cash in his pocket.
04:25I went to the bank and took out a couple thousand dollars of my own, but you had to keep track of
04:29it. Like the scene in the casino, he's throwing $50 and $20 bills around, and as soon as they cut,
04:35we're all trying to get them back like everyone frees. Number 6.
04:39Matt Damon requested his cowboy hat to have a belt buckle spelling the letter B. True Grit.
04:44Not one to be outdone by his pal Ben Affleck, Matt Damon also made a baseball-related wardrobe
04:49request on the set of the Coen brothers' western remake True Grit. Damon, who played a Texas Ranger
04:54in the film, made arrangements for the belt buckle on his cowboy hat to resemble the letter B, in
05:00tribute to his favourite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. Given that the Red Sox's baseball cap bears
05:05the same letter B prominently on the front, it's a pretty direct tribute, albeit ingeniously slipped
05:11into such a card-carrying period movie. Damon reportedly tries to include references to the
05:16Red Sox in as many of his movies as possible, but he'll struggle to top this level of inspired
05:21sneakery. At the very least, I bet he made ol' Ben proud. Number 5.
05:25Roy Scheider requested to wear his police badge on his left, Jaws. Though it's often cited as a goof
05:30that Jaws' police chief protagonist, Martin Brewery, wears his police badge on the wrong side of his
05:35uniform, this is actually no mistake at all. Indeed, police in reality traditionally wear the shield
05:40on their left side, intended to cover their heart, but Brody instead wore his on the right side of
05:45his shirt. In an interview with Empire Magazine, the film's co-writer confirmed that this switcheroo
05:51was not a mistake, but instead the actual suggestion of star Roy Scheider himself. He said, quote,
05:57All cops wear their badge on the left. Roy insisted on it, so I asked him,
06:01Why are you doing that? He said, I want the audience to think this guy is complicated.
06:05This subconsciously throws the audience off balance. It was great to have an audience's
06:10interest piqued by this little wardrobe tweak. I always thought that was an amazing choice,
06:14end quote. Given that Brody is effectively the film's single example of forward-thinking authority,
06:19it does make sense that he isn't cut from quite the same button-down cloth as his fellow servicemen,
06:24whether you noticed it or not. Number 4.
06:26Annika Noni Rose requested Princess Tiana be left-handed like herself, The Princess and the Frog.
06:32The Princess and the Frog is surely one of the most underappreciated films in Disney's back catalogue,
06:36a vibrant and refreshingly diverse spin on the typical Disney princess formula.
06:41Singer-actress Annika Noni Rose provided the voice for teenage protagonist Tiana,
06:45and some fans eventually noticed that Tiana is one of only two Disney princesses,
06:49the other being Mulan, to be left-handed. And this was actually a request from none other than Rose herself,
06:54who, being left-handed, felt that translating her own left-handedness into the character
06:58would represent her all the more accurately on screen. Ultimately, the animators not only agreed,
07:03but also included Annika's own facial dimples in the final design as well.
07:08Number 3. Henry Cavill requested to keep his hairy chest, Man of Steel.
07:12Of the myriad divisive things out Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, many Superman fans took umbrage with the
07:18superhero showing off a distinctly hairy chest during the oil rig rescue sequence.
07:23This, though, was actually a request from Henry Cavill himself, who, when asked to shave his chiseled
07:29bod, fired back with a comic reference to state his case for keeping Supes' hairy chest. He said,
07:35It's something that I wanted, because in the comic book The Death of Superman, there's this bit where his costume's ripped,
07:41and he's making the ultimate sacrifice, and he's got his hairy chest, and I was like, okay,
07:46why is the perception that because he's muscly, he must have no body hair? And I thought, why can't we just do that,
07:52like in the comic books? So, we did. So there, haters be damned. It ensured that Cavill's stocky,
07:57beefcake Superman had a look quite unlike any other live-action iteration of the DC icon.
08:02Number 2. Samuel L. Jackson requested a purple lightsaber, the Star Wars prequels.
08:07Probably the most unique and memorable aspect of Mace Windu as a character is that he commands
08:12a purple lightsaber, a flourish which Samuel L. Jackson himself suggested to George Lucas.
08:17In addition to Jackson's clear fondness for purple in real life, given how often it figures into the
08:22wardrobes of his movie characters, he also wanted to make sure that he stood out in the movie's action
08:27scenes amid a sea of robed warriors. And as the saying goes, shy Ben's getting out,
08:32and though Lucas was initially a bit hesitant, he eventually acquiesced and allowed Jackson to
08:37wield a purple lightsaber during reshoots. While the trilogy sadly never quite capitalized on Jackson's
08:42sheer badassery, the purple saber sure was a neat look for the character and true to Jackson's hopes,
08:48did help Mace Windu stand out from his Jedi brethren. Number 1. Steve McQueen requested 12
08:53extra lines of dialogue to match Paul Newman, the towering inferno. And finally, this request wasn't
08:59some quirky wardrobe ask, but a minor tweak related to dialogue allocation of all things. 1974's
09:05Oscar winning disaster film, The Towering Inferno, boasted a terrific ensemble cast,
09:10led by the inimitable pairing of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. However, after signing on, McQueen had
09:15a few requests to ensure that he received equal treatment compared to co-star Newman. In addition
09:20to seeking and receiving the same salary, McQueen also asked that they receive equally prominent billing
09:25on the movie's posters, and better still, requested that his lines of dialogue numbered exactly the
09:30same as Newman. And so, this led to McQueen reportedly reading the movie's script and counting
09:35the lines for both himself and Newman, after which he asked the screenwriter to pen an extra 12 lines
09:40of dialogue for himself, which he duly did. Ego jostling aside, everything clearly worked out for the best
09:46here given the film's enormous critical and commercial success.