10 Movie Scenes Where Actors Weren't Faking
Full penetration, boxed ears, broken toes and choking. Some things you just can't fake.
Whether we think about it or not, we all understand and participate in the artifice of film, tacitly agreeing to sit in the dark and believe a carefully crafted lie every time we go to the cinema. But what if I told you that sometimes you were watching the truth?
Believe it or not, during filming sometimes things go wrong, sometimes directors push for realism, and sometimes faking it just doesn't cut the mustard.
Yep, every once in a while, either by coincidence or by the mandate of their calling, an actor goes method and does everything that's not in their job description. But, being the masters of the moving picture we know they are, most often we are left clueless about what has really gone on in order to bring us the final product.
It makes you wonder how many films you have watched without knowing who is breaking bones, getting their rocks off or just about dying during filming. So, to rectify this curiosity before it can get under your skin, here are 10 scenes – featuring elves, stoners, spies and sex addicts – where the actors really weren't faking it.
10. Jay Baruchel Freaks Out - Knocked Up
Back in 2006, Knocked Up director Judd Apatow took his cast – including some of stoner comedy's biggest names in Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr and Jay Baruchel – to Knott’s Berry Farm in Southern California to film a rollercoaster sequence for the anti-sex-comedy.
While Apatow intended to put the cast through the wringer by having them ride the rollercoasters all day long, one of the cast members was a little less keen than the rest. Jay Baruchel brought a long-ingrained fear of theme park rides with him to set. Apatow wouldn't take no for an answer, and loaded him in with the rest of the cast on one of the park's craziest rides, to revolve, rise, fall and flip upside down at high speeds.
In the footage captured, Baruchel can be heard screaming, 'I gotta get off, I gotta get off', but this was far from an act. Suffering a panic attack mid-ride, he bolted from the coaster as soon as it stopped, broke down crying, and refused to go on another ride.
Lucky for him, the cast of Knocked Up weren't playing far from type, and so Baruchel's genuine response of fear only built into the characterisation of his role – the imaginatively named Jay.