15 Behind-The-Scenes Moments From Some of the Best Rom-Coms We All Love

Making a film involves several features that may go unnoticed if you’re not looking for them. But the entire crew lives that to the fullest. Doing so leads them to spend fun moments on the set. They also face situations that could have changed the movie forever.

Bright Side wants to share with you some fun facts that might change your perspective when watching scenes of what we think are the best rom-coms we’ve watched so far.

1. In 13 Going on 30, Mark Ruffalo refused to dance to Thriller.

One of the most memorable scenes in 13 Going on 30 is when Jenna and Matt dance to the beat of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. However, the scene might not have happened at all. Mark Ruffalo didn’t want to dance at first.

“The dancing was horrible! I almost didn’t want to do this movie. I literally read it, and I’m like, ’I can’t do this movie. I can’t get up and do those scenes,’” the actor said in an interview. But in the end, Garner dragged him onto the dance floor anyway.

2. Keanu Reeves created his character in Always Be My Maybe.

You probably thought Keanu Reeves appearing in Always Be My Maybe was a jaw-dropper. The actor was so excited to play this small role that he read the script and asked to meet with the crew even before signing on. The director, Nahnatchka Khan, said in an interview, “We were talking about the character, and he just had so many funny ideas and pitches that we went back and revised the script with those in mind.”

3. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was almost My Big Fat Italian Wedding.

This small production surprised everyone with its massive success in the ballots. Screenplay creator and actress Nia Vardalos had been looking for years for someone to take on the film to produce it, and got an offer with a big check. But it came with a catch: “We’ll make it Italian and get Marisa Tomei to star in it,” they told her. The actress gave a resounding no, considering it blasphemy to turn her family story into something else than what it was.

4. The title 10 Things I Hate About You came from the diary of one of its screenwriters.

We can’t imagine this movie having a different title, and maybe that’s because it was inspired by a true sentence written in the diary of one of its screenwriters, Karen McCullah. “I had a boyfriend named Anthony... I made a list titled ’Things I Hate About Anthony.’ When Kirsten [Smith] and I decided to write this, I went through all my high school journals...and when I told her about that list, she said, ’That’s our title,’” McCullah said.

5. My Best Friend’s Wedding almost didn’t make it to the big screen.

This is the film that’ll typically come to mind when thinking of a rom-com; yet, it almost didn’t make it to the theaters. When producers held a test screening to see how the film would be received, it got terrible reviews. “It was just awful,” mentioned Hogan, the director. “I felt like my career was over,” Hogan says. “I felt like it deserved to be over.”

But Jerry Zucker, the producer, never gave up hope. He felt the film had real potential, so they went back to shoot another ending for the film, making it the success it is now.

6. Renée Zellweger didn’t understand what “You had me at hello” meant in Jerry Maguire

Starring Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger, this fantastic movie gave us two of the most iconic catchphrases: the first, “Show me the money,” and the second, “You had me at hello.” The funny thing is that the latter was not easy for Zellweger to get. When she read the script, the actress mentioned that that phrase did not make sense to her. She even thought it was a mistake.

On set, she had to repeat it over and over again in different ways to get it right. “Is that right? Can that be right? How is that right?” the actress kept telling herself repeatedly, “Is there a better way to say that? Am I not getting it?”

7. Josh Noah Centineo was initially meant to play Josh in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

In the film, Lara Jean’s character couldn’t choose between her neighbor, Josh, or the popular boy at school, Peter. Well, Lara wasn’t the only one stuck in such a situation. The director, Susan Johnson, had both characters and actors, but didn’t know who to assign each role to. She saw Noah as a cute guy, so she wanted to give him the part of Josh, but this changed when she did the chemistry reads.

The director said in an interview, “I initially was thinking of Noah for Josh because I thought, ’Oh, he seems like the boy next door,’ but then once I saw Lana and Noah’s chemistry, I knew we had to go that direction. Israel was great with Janel. I thought that fit really well.”

8. The settings in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days looked very real because they were.

When shooting movies, the crew creates entire sets that look like iconic places, but that’s not what happened in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. In the film, Andie, played by Kate Hudson, works for a huge publishing house. The scenes we can see were actually filmed in the Condé Nast building in New York. Hudson even spent some days with editor Anna Wintour to prepare her part.

9. Michael Vartan wasn’t ready for Drew Barrymore’s kiss in Never Been Kissed.

The grandiose kissing scene was kind of hard for Michael Vartan to film. In an interview he had with Barrymore, he said, “There’s a story about the famous scene that very few people know about, and I’m not sure I should....”

Still, Vartan continued, “So, we embrace, and we start kissing, and you really kissed me. I mean, you really kissed me. I was not ready for it in the least, and I’m a man, I was a very young man back then, and I had, uh, feelings,” the actor proceeded to tell how he had to ask for a cut to relax.

With the rest of the shots, he didn’t have much trouble. We don’t blame him, everybody would feel that way about a kiss from the beautiful Drew Barrymore.

10. Production offered an iPad to whoever came up with a name for the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love.

When the Crazy, Stupid, Love shooting started, producers were working under a very different title; “Untitled Dan Fogelman Project.” No one could come up with a title that fitted the plot, so they offered an iPad as a prize to whoever came up with the best one.

The production went through many options, although in the end, the words came out of a conversation with actor Jonah Bobo, who was only 14 years old at the time. In this conversation, he only said the words “Crazy, Stupid, Love” casually, but they stuck with the crew so much that they ended up naming the film after him. Despite this, we’re unsure if they gave anyone the iPad.

11. The actors of The Princess Bride didn’t want the kissing scene to end.

We know how important it is for actors to have good chemistry and attraction while filming a movie, but Cary Elwes and Robin Wright took it to the next level. In fact, they were so attracted to each other that, in the final kiss scene, they both pulled out one excuse after another to kiss again.

12. The opening scenes of Love Actually show real people who were filmed with a hidden camera.

The film Love Actually opens with a montage of adorable scenes of people in an airport hugging their loved ones. With such cute shots, you’d think they’d hire a few extras and set them up to pretend to love each other. But the crew decided to put a hidden camera at the arrival gate of LAX and film the arrivals hall. They shot there for a week, and every time they saw something they liked, they had to run to ask permission to use the footage on the film.

13. The Big Sick was inspired by a real-life illness that sent Emily Gordon into a coma.

Kumail Nanjiani’s first film touched the hearts of many people, and if it felt so real, that’s because it is based on his experience with his current wife, Emily V. Gordon, with whom he co-wrote the film. At the time, they were going through a severe illness that put Emily into a medically induced coma. Fortunately, she recovered.

14. Drew Barrymore asked Adam Sandler to cast her in 50 First Dates.

We know that scripts hang around production companies for a while until someone picks them up and decides to produce them. Drew Barrymore came across 50 First Dates about 4 years before it was produced, and it really caught her eye. When she found out that Adam Sandler had agreed to take the project, she wrote him to tell him that she would love to work with him again on this film, and it worked!

15. The She’s All That actress didn’t like the kissing scene, so she tried to ruin it.

Actress Rachael Leigh Cook didn’t really like how she was playing the character when creating the big kiss scene with Freddie Prinze Jr. Since she didn’t want them to use the shot, she decided to blink the whole time to ruin it. Her trick didn’t work very well, as that footage was used for the movie’s final cut anyway.

What situation in your life resembles a scene from a romantic comedy?