Updated September 24, 2021 6.6K votes 1.9K voters 795.6K views
Many movie fans do not realize the tremendous amount of downtime on a film set. It could take hours for a cinematographer to light a single take, or for a director to block one tracking shot. Of course, movie making is a serious business with millions of production dollars on the line. However, actors have to fill the hours somehow, and just because a producer has a budget to keep, it doesn't mean that shenanigans aren't taking place. We all know that George Clooney is a notorious prankster, and he alone could easily fill this entire list with his impressive prank resume. But he's not the only one. Here are the best on-set movie pranks by Hollywood actors.
One thing you learn by doing a little research into Hollywood pranks is that A-List celebrities worth millions of dollars are just mere human beings who think fart jokes are funny and a crude joke about penis size is not beneath them. Don’t think that acclaimed British actor Alan Rickman appreciated the virtues of a good fart machine? Think again.
Some of the pranks on this list may even cross the line of good clean fun. Just ask Sean Penn how he felt when he thought a real life prison guard was racing towards him with a gun drawn? Or how about the time Paul Newman made director Otto Preminger collapse in shock and fear.
Make your voice heard! Vote up the zaniest and most fun actor pranks below.
No matter how old you are or how many times the fart prank has been performed, it's always going to be funny. On the set of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Alan Rickman pulled a classic fast one on the franchise's titular hero. Daniel Radcliffe gave the details during a Reddit AMA: "There’s a shot in the great hall of all the kids sleeping in the great hall, and the camera starts very very wide, and comes in so that it’s an inch from my face, a very long developing set, yeah, and Alan Rickman decided he would plant one of those fart machines in my, uh, sleeping bag, and they waited until like -the camera had come in for this huge DRAMATIC developing shot, and then unleashed this tremendous noise in the great hall.”
Age: Dec. at 69 (1946-2016)
Birthplace: England, London
Credits: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,Die Hard,Galaxy Quest
George Clooney is known around Tinsel Town as the ultimate prankster. He got one over on his buddy Matt Damon on the set of The Monuments Men in 2014. Damon was trying to lose a few pounds for the film. In order to make Damon believe that he was gaining weight, Clooney had the wardrobe department slowly take-in Damon's pants every few days. Damon never discussed the mysterious issue with Clooney and only recently discovered that it was a prank to make Damon lose his mind.
Age: 62
Birthplace: USA, Lexington, Kentucky
Credits: Gravity, Ocean's Eleven, Up in the Air, The Descendants
It's tough to weed through all the George Clooney pranks. Sometimes, his pranks are a product of revenge. After Brad Pitt sent out a message to the crew of Ocean's Twelve that Clooney was going "method" and wanted to be called by his character's name, "Danny Ocean," the salt and pepper matinee idol sought sweet revenge. Clooney placed a bumper sticker that read, "Small Penis on Board" on Pitt's car. Pitt figured people were making a fuss by honking and waving at him, because, well, he's Brad Pitt, not because of the bumper sticker.
Age: 59
Birthplace: Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA
Credits: Inglourious Basterds, Fight Club, World War Z, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
When an actor appears in a high-tech science fiction film like Star Trek: Into Darkness, the idea of having to wear a protective facial shield called "neuron cream," may not seem too out of this world. However, Cumberbatch's co-stars made up the safety cream in order to make the English actor look silly when he put the tiny dots of cream on his face. After the prank, Cumberbatch admitted to being gullible, but was also just going along with what he thought were stringent American safety rules.
Age: 47
Birthplace: London, England, UK
Credits: The Imitation Game, Star Trek Into Darkness, Black Mass, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper pranked Jennifer Lawrence on the set of American Hustle in 2013. During a scene that took place in a Boston graveyard, the devilishly handsome leading men arranged to have JLaw, who had already stated her fear of shooting in a cemetery, eye a gravestone with her name on it that read, "Born August 15, 1890. Died April 1, 1913." Of course, Lawrence totally freaked out. Afterwards, the boys pointed out that the date of death was April 1 - April Fool's Day.
Age: 49
Birthplace: Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK
Credits: The Dark Knight, The Prestige, American Psycho, The Dark Knight Rises
Even directors get in on the pranking fun. Steven Spielberg pranked Harrison Ford while filming Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. During the scene where Ford is tied up to a rock, ready to get whipped, He had his back to his tormentor. He didn't realize that Spielberg had persuaded Barbara Streisand to take the whipping reins. While Babs was beating on Ford, she said, "this is for all the money you're going to make on Return of the Jedi."
Age: 76
Birthplace: USA, Cincinnati, Ohio
Credits: Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
