High maintenance talent at one time or another. In some cases, always. 1. Gene Hackman
Oscar winner Gene Hackman was a force to deal with on the set of “The Royal Tenenbaums.” During a Q&A after the 10th anniversary screening in New York, cast and crew members recollected how Hackman would call screenwriter Noah Baumbach a “cunt” and would tell director Wes Anderson to “pull up your pants and act like a man.”
There’s more where that came from:
Anderson and [Gwyneth] Paltrow both admitted they were “scared” of working with Hackman, with [Anjelica] Huston saying, “I was a lot scared but I was more concerned with protecting Wes,” and said that no one involved with the film had “heard or seen of Gene since this movie.” … [Anderson]: He was one of the things that pulled everybody into this movie. Anytime we are together and talk about the movie we always talk about him.
Though she’s seemingly got her shit together for now, it’s not a stretch to imagine, I suppose, that LiLo would be a “colossal pain in the ass” on the set. According to one E! News source in regards to her guest spot on FX’s “Anger Management” (above). “From the moment she arrived [on her second day of the shoot], she did nothing but hold up the production. She would sit in her trailer and stall and she delayed until she up and left for her boyfriend’s concert … She held everyone hostage.” [IMDb]
3. William Shatner
William Shatner is apparently an egomaniacal prick. His lack of participation in the 2004 Planet XPo “Beam Me Up Scotty … One Last Time” farewell event for actor James Doohan was just one of many examples. Captain Kirk told the promoter of the event that he didn’t “want to do this and really don’t want to deal with all this Alzheimer’s crap.” (Doohan, Shatner’s longtime co-star on “Star Trek,” was diagnosed with the disease months prior and died in 2005.) “This is the usual thing that happens,” George Takei, another “Star Trek” cast member, told Howard Stern in 2010. “On the set –whether it was the TV series or the movies, or at conventions — this was another convention where he decided he was not going to do what they wanted him to do, and he walked out.” [IMDb]
4. Christian Bale
In what was perhaps one of the most famous on-set blowups of all time, Christian Bale railed on director of photography Shane Hurlbut — also threatened — while filming “Terminator: Salvation” because the latter apparently interrupted an intense acting sequence. You can’t not listen to the leaked recording of the exchange and think this guy’s gotta get on Klonopin. [IMDb]
5. Bruce Willis
In 2011 on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, director Kevin Smith said working with Bruce Willis on the set of “Cop Out” was nothing short of “soul crushing.” The action star, notorious for giving reporters hell come promotion time, wouldn’t even pose for a photo of him next to a poster at one “Cop Out”-related event. Smith gladly shared his antipathy with cast and crew members at the release party: “I want to thank everyone who worked on the film,” he said, “except for Bruce Willis, who is a fucking dick.” [IMDb]
6. Julia RobertsApparently, when she was 23, Julia Roberts was a hot mess on the set of “Hook” in 1991. She fought with director Steven Spielberg, according to the New York Times, which many suspected was her emotional outlet for a “Fellini summer” of drugs followed by a nervous breakdown after splitting with Kiefer Sutherland. People Magazine at the time suggested that all the celebrity visits to the set, which included Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Prince, may have been to see if “Tinkerhell,” as crew members nicknamed Roberts, “was as emaciated and emotionally fragile a Tinkerbell as rumor insisted.” [IMDb]
7. Jennifer LopezOn the set of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” 42-year-old Jennifer Lopez refused to speak to anyone while filming, which kinda puts a kink in the entire moviemaking process. The anti-social behavior, according to one source, was an apparent response to the onslaught of paparazzi attention she received from her recent split-up with Marc Anthony. So, if you wanted to speak to J-Lo on the set of that movie, talk to her “personal handler” only. Not her. [IMDb]
8. Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal has an awful reputation for treating co-stars and stuntmen like garbage — kicking stuntmen in the nuts just to see if they’re wearing cups or not, shit like that. But even actors who aren’t professionally trained to fight have to put up with his bullying. John Leguizamo recalled in 2010 how the karate fatso let out his insecurities in a very schoolyard way when filming “Executive Decision”:
I’m playing his Master Sargeant, and we come in for rehearsals and he says, ‘I’m in command. Everything I say is law. Anybody doesn’t agree?’ I was like, ‘Bwahahaha.’ I started cracking up because he sounded like a retard … He came up and he Taekwondo’ed my ass against the brick and he [hit me with his elbow] … He’s six-foot-five and he caught me off guard and knocked all of the air out of me and I was like, ‘Why?! Why?!’ I really wanted to say how big and fat he was and that he runs like a girl, but I didn’t because all I could say was, ‘Why?!’ Why’d he slam me against the wall? We were rehearsing.
[IMDb] 9. Marlon BrandoIn Frank Oz’s 2001 flick “The Score,” Marlon Brando took offense Frank Oz’s direction that his performance as a homosexual crook was too nelly. Brando’s childlike counter on the set included addressing the director as “Miss Piggy,” refusing to wear pants (obligating the crew to shoot him from the waist up in all scenes) and bringing a note from his doctor, claiming the actor was allergic to Oz. (Oz, supposedly, sat in a different room and gave direction through “The Score” co-star Robert DeNiro in an ear piece.) In 1996′s “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” Brando refused to remove a makeshift ice bucket hat from his head. He also wore an earpiece for crew members to feed him lines while shooting. He cared that little at that point in his career. [IMDb]
10. Wesley Snipes
Actor/comic Patton Oswalt recalled how, on the set of “Blade: Trinity,” Wesley Snipes would sit in his trailer and smoke weed all day. This ill behavior (get it?) was in part a protest against director David Goyer and New Line Cinema who, Snipes believed, owed him more money for his performance and were squeezing him out of creative control. Snipes ended up communicating exclusively with Goyer via Post-it notes that he would sign with the name ‘Blade.’” [IMDb]
11. Mandy Patinkin
“Homeland” actor Mandy Patinkin admitted to New York Times Magazine that, on the medical TV drama “Chicago Hope,” he was too big for his scrubby pants. “I struggled with letting in other people’s opinions,” he said. “I never let directors talk to me, because I was so spoiled. I started off with people like Milos Forman, Sidney Lumet, James Lapine, unbelievably gifted people. So there I was saying, ‘Don’t talk to me, I don’t want your opinion.’ I behaved abominably. I don’t care if my work was good or if I got an award for it. I’m not proud of how I was then, and it pained me.” [IMDb]
While hanging out on the set of a movie might seem like a dream come true, it can often be a nightmare for the cast and crew working with a demanding star. Crazy demands, bad attitudes and tantrums are just a few of the things crew members have to deal with when working with a difficult actor. Sometimes their requests become so outrageous that producers end up refusing to work with them all together. Who are Hollywood’s most difficult stars? Here’s a look at eight actors who are known to be both difficult and demanding.
1. Katherine Heigl
Over the last few years Heigl has become well known for her outrageous on-set demands. A Hollywood Reporter article writes that several executives and producers who’ve worked with Heigl have said she’s extraordinarily demanding on set. In 2008, she decided to publicly air some of her grievances about her first hit film, Knocked Up, describing it as a sexist movie. Later that same year, she also said she wasn’t planning on seeking an Emmy for her performance in ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy because she didn’t feel the writing was good enough to do so. An insider who worked in her 2010 film Life as We Know It revealed during an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that “she can cost you time every single day of shooting. Wardrobe issues, not getting out of the trailer, questioning the script every single day. Even getting her deal closed at Warners was hard. She hit that point of ‘no.’”
Tonight in Los Angeles, members of the cast and crew of Mean Girls will gather for a special screening to mark its 10th anniversary. It may not be Wednesday, but you can bet plenty of the guests will turn up wearing pink.
Mean Girls is the story of high-school cliques as told through the eyes of Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), a previously home-schooled teenager who joins Illinois's North Shore High only to become the latest plaything of the Plastics, three halter-top-wearing beauties who rule the school with an iron fist.
Written by Tina Fey who appears in the film, and based on Rosalind Wiseman's book Queen Bees & Wannabes, the film was a surprise hit, making $130m (£77m) at the box office having had a modest budget of $17m (£10m).
Ten years on, and the film has become a pop-culture phenomenon. It is a sleepover staple, and an internet meme. Not only is it still discussed on Twitter and blogs, but on Tumblr you can find a photo of just about anything – from a reality-television star crying, to a meeting of world leaders – with a line from the film slapped across it. According to Tumblr, its users have created more than 10,000 posts and 477,000 notes related to the film in the past month alone. And its influence has even crept into academia, where a number of universities discuss it in their sociology classes.
Of course, much of the film's enduring appeal comes down to it being endlessly quotable. In one scene, fed up with Gretchen Wieners' attempts to start a new word for cool, the evil ringleader of the Plastics, Regina George (Rachel McAdams), snaps at her to "stop trying to make 'fetch' happen". Because of the film, though, fetch did happen, and became part of our vernacular. Last August, the White House uploaded on to its Twitter account a photo of the Obamas' dog, ball in mouth, with the caption, "Bo, stop trying to make fetch happen." Naturally, fans of the film made it one of the handle's most retweeted messages so far.
"It's a really clever, really smart film so it stands up to repeated viewing, which I think is key for something becoming a cult hit," says Empire magazine's deputy online editor, and Mean Girls fan Helen O'Hara. "You notice clever lines you didn't notice before. Little jokes that maybe didn't wow you first time around suddenly become the funniest thing in the world. 'You go, Glen Coco!' for example. I don't even remember that from the first time I saw it and now you can buy T-shirts and bags with it on."
Not that the cast had any clue that they were on to such a monster hit. Lacey Chabert, who played Gretchen Wieners (one of the Plastics and the daughter of the inventor of toaster strudel, no less), says that none of those involved could have predicted what an impact the film would still have 10 years later.
"Pretty much every day, someone stops me in real life and quotes some of the dialogue," Chabert tells me on the phone from Los Angeles. "And then on Twitter and Instagram, I get hundreds, if not thousands, of messages every single day. And on Wednesdays, people will send me pictures of themselves wearing pink. I had no idea when making the film that we would be talking about it as much as we are now."
With its enduring popularity, rumours of an official sequel are rife, if unfounded (and the less said about 2011's straight-to-video cash-in, Mean Girls 2, the better). However, two movies based on Wiseman's subsequent books are in the pipeline, including Mean Moms and another that will focus on boys' relationships. Even more exciting, though, is that Fey has confirmed that she's working on a musical version of the film.
But the real question is, do the Plastics still keep in touch with each other? "Not really, I haven't seen the girls for a few years," Chabert says. "Although I do often see Jonathan Bennett, who played Aaron Samuels."
It makes sense that the frenemies would no longer be in contact. But one has to wonder what Regina George would have to say about her former flame hanging out with Gretchen. After all, as Gretchen herself would remark, "Ex-boyfriends are off-limits to friends. That's just, like, the rules of feminism."
Asked about her sex list, on which she named an impressive number of celebrities she had slept with, Lindsay, 27, said: "I am not discussing this. That's not funny."
When asked when she last had a drink, she stuttered: "I don't know."
She then refused to show Alan how to pole dance when they brought a pole on especially.
Alan removed all booze from his globe and replaced his usual collection of spirits with Um Bongo and Capri-Sun.
When he tried to lighten the mood by showing her Instagram photos, she moaned: "This is getting awkward.
"You are going to have a programme just on selfies now."
How excruciating. And in the spirit of tough watches, here are a whole bunch more of awkward chat show moments.
