15 Backstage Facts About Famous Movies Most Viewers Don’t Know About

A regular viewer will never even realize half of what is happening on the set of famous movies. What do you think the creators of The Matrix were inspired by when they came up with the green running symbols on the screen? Or what irreversible thing did Kurt Russell do on the set of The Hateful Eight?

Bright Side has learned some backstage secrets of Hollywood movies and wants to share them with you right now.

• In Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts was completely against taking part in nude scenes. But the director of the movie found a way out and in some scenes, Julia was replaced by professional dancer Shelley Michelle. More than that, on the poster of the movie, we are actually seeing only Julia’s head, the rest of her body belongs to her stunt double. By the way, on the poster, Richard Gere has brown hair and in the movie, it’s already grey.

• In Titanic, the shooting of a rather small scene at dinner on the first class deck took almost 2 days. The thing is, there were a lot of important details in the episode, a lot of close-up shots, glances, and short lines. On the second day, the actors started making faces and laughing and Leonardo DiCaprio looked at the utensils and asked Kathy Bates if she knew which of the forks was used for a lobotomy.

• Do you remember the scene with chest hair removal from The 40-Year-Old-Virgin? Steve Carell had to experience this procedure for real. The director thought that the emotions at this moment had to be real: he shot the scene in one take using 5 cameras at once to make sure everything worked the way it should.

• In order to show one of The Hangover characters lose his tooth, the creators didn’t have to use really complex makeup techniques. For some reason, Ed Helms never had that one tooth, so in certain scenes, he just had to remove his implant.

• How was it possible that Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, the first Guy Ritchie movie done by a director nobody knew back then, managed to get the worldwide famous singer Sting? The wife of the singer Trudie Styler is the head of a production agency. Once, Trudie saw a short movie called The Hard Case. She loved it so much that she risked investing her money into shooting a full movie and even managed to convince her husband to take part in the future movie. This was how Sting appeared in the small but memorable role as the bar owner and father of the main character. And this movie made Guy Ritchie one of the most famous directors of our modern day.

• In Inside Out, the creators left an interesting Easter Egg: all the characters have the same eye color as their emotions except for Joy and Sadness: they both have blue eyes. By doing this, the creators wanted to highlight the fact that Joy and Sadness always go together.

• The director of The Shining, Stanley Kubrick, was famous for being a perfectionist. So, instead of the 17 weeks he planned to spend shooting the movie, he ended up spending 51 weeks. For example, the dialogue scene between Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson was shot 127 times, and in order to shoot the “Here’s Johnny” scene, they only needed 3 days and 60 doors.
  
  By the way, in order to shoot this scene, they used special light doors that Jack Nicholson (who used to work as a firefighter) broke way too easily. So, for the next takes, they had to get heavier and more sturdy doors.

• In the movie Unthinkable, the creators decided to not overcomplicate things in order to show how to defuse a bomb under pressure: in the movie, they used Microsoft Excel to do it. Amazing!

• In one of his interviews, the production and concept designer of The Matrix, Simon Whiteley, revealed his inspiration for creating the famous green lines of code on the screens. It was simple: he used the Japanese hieroglyphics from his wife’s cook books.

• In one of the scenes of The Hateful Eight, Kurt Russel’s character breaks a guitar. The Martin Museum offered a rare guitar that was made in 1870 especially for this scene and there were several replicas made. It was assumed that there would be a replica used in the scene and that Russel wouldn’t break the original. But something went wrong and the actor was not warned about the value of this guitar. So, during shooting he, according to the script, completely destroyed the guitar. As a result, the museum said they would never lend out any more guitars for shooting any more movies.

• In Shawshank Redemption, it took 9 hours to shoot the first conversation between Andy and Red. During this time, actor Morgan Freeman just kept playing with the ball and never complained even once, but the next day he came in with a bandaged arm. And this scene was not the only one that required a lot of takes.
  
  The director of the movie wasn’t great at explaining exactly what he didn’t like, so there was a lot of arguing on the set. During one of these arguments, Freeman said he would not do second takes without an explanation.

• In the opening scene of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you can see Voldemort’s snake Nagini moving on the logo of Warner Bros. Pictures. It was done for a reason: the snake appears in one of the first scenes of the movie.

• The artist Margaret Keane, who the movie Big Eyes is about, was in one of its scenes. She portrayed a woman sitting on a bench and reading a book behind the back of the main character. You can see the photo where the actress Amy Adams and the artist are together right at the end of the move, before the main credits.

• The budget of Dallas Buyers Club was relatively small. For example, there was only $250 for the makeup during the entire shooting process. What is more interesting is that Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews, who worked as makeup artists on the set, received an Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

• In The Greatest Showman, there is an interesting Easter Egg in the opening credits. We can see a picture of Wolverine’s claws. The main character in this movie was portrayed by Hugh Jackman — the best Wolverine ever.

Do you know any backstage stories about famous movies? Tell us in the comment section below.

Their love story may have started on the Titanic, but the bond between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio has only grown stronger over the years. Winslet recently shared that DiCaprio feels more like her husband than her actual spouse. The two actors, who reunited for the intense drama “Revolutionary Road,” utilized their deep friendship to enhance their on-screen chemistry. Winslet expressed her immense appreciation for working with DiCaprio, emphasizing the unique connection they share.