Exposing all the weird, expensive, political, ego-driven stuff that happens behind the scenes before and after films and TV series hit the screens.

That's Showbiz, Baby

Entertainment

These&nbsp;actors who walked off set all had their reasons -&nbsp;some are just better than others. Film and TV production are high-stakes, high-tension experiences. The days are long, and sometimes emotions get the best of an actor.&nbsp;

Find out which actor left because a <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/actor-director-fights/matthewcoleweiss" target="_blank">director threatened him</a>&nbsp;with a loaded gun. Which actor held up production for four days because his <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/co-stars-who-hated-each-other/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">scene partner</a>&nbsp;picked him up and threw him 3&nbsp;feet? Which actress almost walked away from one of the biggest movie franchises in Hollywood history because she didn&rsquo;t like the direction of the script?

Some of these actors just threatened to quit, while others stormed off the set filled with rage. Which scenes that made actors mad were totally justified? Which ones were perhaps diva-driven?

10 Actors Who Stormed Off Sets For Legitimately Good Reasons

Actor

Ann Casano

Fun facts and wild true stories from behind the scenes of some of history's most beloved and infamous movies.

Movies in the Making

In 1987, a short documentary about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL; 1943-1954)&nbsp;aired on television, catching the attention of producer and director Penny Marshall. The documentary inspired the making of the feature film&nbsp;A League of Their Own, which became a commercial and critical hit when it was released in 1992.

Behind the scenes, the cast members trained hard to convincingly portray baseball players, even suffering&nbsp;real injuries in the process. Many of the details in the film, such as the players being sent to charm school, having chaperones, and being forced to play in skirts, are based on the real experiences of the&nbsp;AAGPBL athletes.&nbsp;

While the film project hit some stumbling blocks along the way - the original studio placed it in turnaround and several of the actors originally cast dropped out or were replaced - <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/final-film-appearances/loganrapp?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">the final film</a> remains one of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-most-inspirational-sports-movies" target="_blank">most entertaining and inspirational</a>&nbsp;sports movies in Hollywood history. In 2012, it was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry. And in 2020, <a href="https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/a-league-of-their-own-series-amazon-1234727631/" target="_blank">Amazon announced</a> it had picked up a TV series version of the film; the show will follow a new set of characters as they attempt to become professional baseball players.&nbsp;&nbsp;

In the film, Tom Hanks&#39;s character memorably claimed, &quot;There&#39;s no crying in baseball!&quot;&nbsp;That may or may not be true, but what&nbsp;is&nbsp;true is that the making of&nbsp;A League of Their Own sounds as fun as the finished movie.

Behind-The-Scenes Stories From ‘A League of Their Own,’ The Most Rewatchable Sports Movie

General

Behind The Scenes Stories From 'A League Of Their Own'

TGWrites

Behind The Scenes

The charm and laughs of the 1992 fish-out-of-water comedy My Cousin Vinny have&nbsp;stood the test of time. Small-time lawyer Vinny Gambini and his fianc&eacute;e,&nbsp;Mona Lisa Vito - a pair as New York as New York gets - are beckoned to the deep South after Vinny&#39;s cousin Bill, along with his friend Stan, are falsely accused of murder - the&nbsp;result of bad timing and unfortunate coincidence. Despite never having tried - let alone won - a courtroom case, Vinny is commissioned to serve as the pair&#39;s defense attorney.

The stakes couldn&#39;t be higher for the college students, who must rely on Vinny to defend them in court, despite his lack of courtroom experience and the fact that it took him six tries to pass the bar exam. By now, the comedy is firmly entrenched in the annals of Hollywood comic history, but going from concept to classic took a whole lot of key decisions, unexpected inspiration, and one legendary Oscar upset.

In these behind-the-scenes stories about My Cousin Vinny, find out about the real-life origin of the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-my-cousin-vinny-quotes/movie-and-tv-quotes" target="_blank">oft-quoted &quot;two yutes&quot; line</a>, the film&#39;s surprising legal accuracy, and&nbsp;why Marisa Tomei almost got cut out of the movie entirely.

Behind-The-Scenes Stories From 'My Cousin Vinny'

Behind The Scenes Stories Of 'My Cousin Vinny'

The making of&nbsp;Cast Away reunited&nbsp;two-time Academy Award winning actor <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/tom-hanks-was-the-best/lisa-waugh" target="_blank">Tom Hanks</a> with his Forrest Gump director&nbsp;Robert Zemeckis. The two-year production schedule was not an easy feat for the cast and crew, and resulted in many behind-the-scenes stories that will totally blow you away.The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/best-adventure-movies/ranker-film" target="_blank">adventure drama</a>&nbsp;released in 2000 was an incredibly untraditional film, and the fact that it became a Hollywood blockbuster, grossing&nbsp;well over $400 million worldwide, was quite a surprise. Tom Hanks was essentially alone for a majority of the film -&nbsp;unless you count his washed-up&nbsp;buddy, Wilson the volleyball -&nbsp;and he even lost a total of 50 pounds&nbsp;for his role as Chuck Noland. The existential survival epic was nominated for two Academy Awards, including another Best Actor nomination for Hanks.So, just how much did FedEx pay for all that product placement? Why was production shut down for one year? What was really in that package that Chuck refused to open until he got off the island? Find out&nbsp;the answers to those questions and discover other interesting details about Cast Away&nbsp;below.

Behind-The-Scenes Stories That Will Change The Way You Watch 'Cast Away'

16 Behind The Scenes Details About Cast Away

Saving Private Ryan is not your typical&nbsp;war film. Director Steven Spielberg fills the movie with so much realistic imagery that some of America&#39;s&nbsp;most grizzled veterans experienced PTSD after watching the 1998 movie. It&rsquo;s graphic, intense, and it doesn&rsquo;t give way to sentimentality.

So, then, let&#39;s not waste time rattling off&nbsp;Saving Private Ryan&nbsp;wiki information or basic&nbsp;Saving Private Ryan trivia. No one needs to go over&nbsp;the nearly $500 million the film grossed worldwide or its 11 Academy Award nominations. Instead, find out about why the rest of the cast had&nbsp;real hatred toward Matt Damon and how the film employed actual amputees as extras. Take a deep dive into some truly&nbsp;interesting facts that you may not have known about the Academy Award-winning film.

17 Surprising Facts You Probably Didn't Know About 'Saving Private Ryan'

17 Surprising Facts You Didn't Know About Saving Private Ryan

Sci-Fi

Universally regarded as one of the <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-movie-sequels/ranker-film?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">best sequels ever</a> made, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/movies-and-films-directed-by-james-cameron/ranker-film" target="_blank">James Cameron&#39;s</a> Aliens&nbsp;(1986) achieved the rare feat of distinguishing itself from its illustrious predecessor while not violating the world and tone the first film created. From Ridley Scott&#39;s brilliant <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/making-of-alien-movie/eric-vega" target="_blank">haunted-house-in-space concept</a>, Cameron pivoted to a brutally intense military sci-fi action flick. The fulcrum of&nbsp;this pivot was Sigourney Weaver, who provided continuity between the two pictures.

The shoot was anything but smooth going, though. From casting problems&nbsp;to budgetary concerns&nbsp;to an outright crew mutiny, Aliens had challenges right out of the gate. It&#39;s a testament to the singular vision of Cameron and his then-wife, producer Gale Anne Hurd, as well as the commitment of the superlative cast, that it all turned out as well as it did.

Aliens is one for the ages. Here&#39;s how it actually got done.

12 Behind-The-Scenes Stories From 'Aliens'

Gordon Cameron

Everything from A New Hope to The Rise of Skywalker, including trivia, behind the scenes photos, jokes, gifts, Grogu (Baby Yoda), and all the rankings you can handle.

Go See a Star War

Interesting

The best Star Wars behind-the-scenes photos from all Star Wars movies, including the original trilogy, the prequels, and even a few from the sequels.

This list includes Star Wars BTS pictures of the original R2D2 concept art; the entire cast, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/star-wars-wardrobe/ashley-reign" target="_blank">in costume</a>, flirting with Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia); photos of Yoda before he was finished; the building of the actual; on-set Millennium Falcon and;&nbsp;of course, that giant elephant they dressed up as a Bantha.

Rare Star Wars Behind-The-Scenes Photos

Star Wars Behind the Scenes Photos | Rare Star Wars Pictures

Jude Newsome

Friendship

Big actors often have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-notoriously-difficult-actors-to-work-with/celebrity-lists" target="_blank">equally big egos</a>,&nbsp;and when those egos are forced to compete for airtime, jokes, and accolades, it can <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/co-stars-who-hated-each-other/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">understandably lead to friction</a>. Some of the best <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/movie-friends-who-hated-each-other/megan-summers" target="_blank">cinematic buddies were&nbsp;at each other&#39;s throats</a> during filming, and television is no different.

Making a TV show can be a grueling marathon, especially if the show is popular and lasts for several seasons. In this crucible, it frequently seems that off-screen relationships between co-stars develop in one of two ways: They either bond over their shared circumstances and the cast becomes like a family, or they grind away at each other&#39;s nerves and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/tv-couples-who-hated-each-other-in-real-life/donn-saylor" target="_blank">form&nbsp;bitter, barely-contained feuds</a> that almost always spill over the soundstage and into the headlines.

When fans come to love a show - and the relationships on that show - it&#39;s nice to think that the same chemistry exists between the characters in real life. This is not always the case,&nbsp;as fans of&nbsp;Sex and&nbsp;the City, Beverly Hills, 90210, The Good Wife, and even The Golden Girls&nbsp;know -&nbsp;or are soon to find out. Here&#39;s a look at some famous TV besties who were bitter enemies when the cameras stopped rolling.

TV Best Friends Who Hated Each Other In Real Life

TV Best Friends Who Hate Each Other In Real Life

Zach Seemayer

1980s

At some point in &#39;85 or &#39;86, producer Joel Silver&nbsp;was asked to come aboard <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/predator-best-action-movie-ever/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">a project </a>developed from a mysterious script about an alien hunter that appeared under an executive&#39;s door one day. Arranged as a vehicle for&nbsp;Austrian body-builder-turned-action-star&nbsp;Arnold Schwarzenegger,&nbsp;Predator&nbsp;was an unexpected genre pastiche that&#39;s widely regarded as one of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-80s-action-movies/ranker-film" target="_blank">best &#39;80s action movies</a>. Though the cast and crew seemed to have had fun in the jungle together, the making of Predator was&nbsp;tough&nbsp;from start to finish, as evidenced by these&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/predator-movie-small-details/erin-maxwell" target="_blank">Predator movie facts</a>.

Schwarzenegger stars&nbsp;as Dutch, a soldier in charge of leading his elite Special Forces team into a Central American jungle on&nbsp;a rescue mission. The mission is interrupted by an alien presence, and all hell breaks loose. Predator&nbsp;was primarily shot&nbsp;near Palenque, Mexico, and incorporates elements of action, sci fi, and horror. The cast and crew&nbsp;dealt with the extreme heat of the jungle and&nbsp;serious illnesses brought on by eating and drinking contaminated food and water.

But illness was only one of the movie&rsquo;s obstacles. Director John McTiernan&nbsp;recalls&nbsp;trouble right out of the gate, <a href="https://filmschoolrejects.com/36-things-we-learned-from-john-mctiernans-predator-commentary-bf9c5393d74/" target="_blank">saying</a>, &ldquo;The first day of shooting was the worst nightmare I&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo; Things didn&#39;t get easier. One of the most interesting Predator behind-the-scenes stories centers on the original Predator suit, and the muscle-bound man from Brussels initially hired to play the part. They were both a complete disaster.

Read all about the hokey red suit from hell in the&nbsp;Predator making-of stories&nbsp;below. And don&rsquo;t forget Arnold&rsquo;s sage&nbsp;advice, &quot;If it bleeds, we can kill it.&quot;&nbsp;

Somehow, Making Predator Was WAY More Insane Than The Actual Movie

20 Hard To Believe Facts About The Making Of Predator

Lists about Saturday Night Live cast members, hosts, musical acts, and backstage antics of America's favorite sketch comedy series, airing from 30 Rockefeller Plaza since 1975.

Live from New York!

Even if you’re not exactly up on the latest season of Saturday Night Live, chances are you’ve heard at least a couple of SNL stories. You never know what you’re going to get when you mix comedians, drugs, egomania, alcohol, huge stars, and live TV. Sometimes Prince shows up at your after party, sometimes somebody gets stabbed, and sometimes Chevy Chase happens.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are two types of backstage SNL stories: the ones everyone knows and the ones we’re just hearing about because everyone is either dead, over it, or the statutes of limitations have run out. Unless your Internet was down in early 2016, you couldn’t miss Kanye’s epic backstage rant where he compared himself to Stanley Kubrick, Picasso, and the Apostle Paul. But there are some hidden Saturday Night Live stories you must learn about because they are juicy, strange, and in some cases disturbing.&nbsp;Let’s delve into the secrets, scandals, feuds, and tea spilling of the SNL cast old and new and see what’s rattling around in the closet over at Studio 8H.

26 Behind the Scenes Stories from SNL

26 Shocking Behind the Scenes SNL Stories You Won't Believe

Lisa Waugh

Thrillers

The making of Se7en was fortunately not as intense as what ended up onscreen, although it was certainly eventful. Released in 1995, the film is widely considered to be one of the best, most harrowing pictures ever made about the quest for a serial slayer. In fact, it&#39;s so relentlessly dark and cynical that it makes The Silence of the Lambs feel like a Disney movie in comparison.&nbsp;

The story, of course, is about two detectives,&nbsp;Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman),&nbsp;on the search for a psychopath whose crimes have been inspired by the seven deadly sins. Although very little violence occurs onscreen, the graphic aftermath of the killings&nbsp;is just as jarring today as it was decades. That&#39;s because director David Fincher made every effort to create a pervasive sense of dread, the likes of which few films&nbsp;accomplished before or since.&nbsp;

A lot went into creating that vibe and making the movie unforgettable. These Seven behind-the-scenes stories will reveal the actors who almost snagged&nbsp;the lead roles, the struggles&nbsp;of the performers who played the victims, the way the filmmakers took every precaution to make sure their challenging story wasn&#39;t compromised, and much more.&nbsp;

Behind The Scenes Stories From The Making Of 'Se7en'

'Seven:' Behind The Scenes Of The '90s Thriller

Mike McGranaghan

The slicked back hair, the muscle cars, the summer romance – Grease is one of <a href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/top-20-best-musical-movies-of-all-time" target="_blank">the most iconic musicals of all time</a>. The tinselly, poodle-skirt-adorned, '50s throwback beat out the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/wizard-of-oz-behind-the-scenes-stories/erin-mccann" target="_blank">Wizard of Oz</a> as the highest-grossing American movie musical of the 20th century. It has hit stages across America, from high school auditoriums and local theaters to Broadway, but underneath the film's universally-adored frothy exterior – that magical place where the bad boy gets the good girl – stories from the set of Grease paint a different picture.Behind the scenes of Grease, egos flared among 30-year-old stars embracing the drama of their high school-aged roles. Though beauty school dropouts cavorted with their cute co-stars and Olivia Newton-John had to be sewn into her pants, other actors dealt with immeasurable pain and serious illness.40 years after the sun set on those summer nights, Grease is still the one that we want. It's managed&nbsp;to work its way into our modern lexicon – from pop culture references to family singalongs that transcend generation - but these dark behind the scenes stories will make sure you never sing &quot;Greased Lightning&quot; the same way again.

Horror Stories From Behind The Scenes Of Grease

Mariel Loveland

Four preteen boys from Oregon set off on an overnight adventure to find a body -&nbsp;there are no girls, first kisses, huge revelations, or big-name movie stars in the film. Yet, from these stories about the making of Stand by Me, it&#39;s easy to see why the film is often regarded among the best coming-of-age <a href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-best-movies-of-all-time" target="_blank">movies</a> in cinema history. If not for a few lucky breaks, however, the movie perhaps would not exist at all.&nbsp;

Stand by Me is an adaptation of <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-based-on-stephen-king-books/lons" target="_blank">Stephen King</a>&#39;s 1982 novella&nbsp;The Body. Director Rob Reiner was coming off of the modest box office success of his mockumentary This is Spinal Tap and seemed like an unlikely choice to lead&nbsp;the project. However, the former TV actor was able to hone the raw talent of the four leads - Wil Wheaton, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/river-phoenix-sad-life-facts/katia-kleyman" target="_blank">River Phoenix</a>, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O&rsquo;Connell -&nbsp;making them appear as if they had been best friends their whole lives.

The production, like that of many great films, was filled with obstacles. No studio in Hollywood even wanted to make the film and, of course, plenty of hijinx and hard lessons ensued on the set. Not only did the characters grow up on their adventure to find&nbsp;Ray Brower, but the actors who played them grew up&nbsp;as well.

Behind-The-Scenes Stories From 'Stand By Me' That Prove The Film Shaped The Child Actors

Stand By Me Behind The Scenes Stories That Prove The Impact It Had On The Child Actors

Fun facts, wild true stories, and cringey ego-driven tea-spilling from behind the scenes of some of history's most beloved and infamous comedy movies.

Just Doing Comedy!

90s Movies

When it was released&nbsp;in 1994,&nbsp;Clerks&nbsp;was a revolutionary depiction of Generation X, stoner culture, retail, and society as a whole. The massive success of the film launched writer and director Kevin Smith&#39;s career, as well as&nbsp;his shared movie universe, dubbed the &quot;<a href="https://www.viewaskew.com/" target="_blank">View Askewniverse</a>,&quot; in numerous movies, comics, and more.

Even decades after it&nbsp;came out, film students and cultural historians&nbsp;continue to study Clerks and how it was made. A lot of work&nbsp;went into making&nbsp;Clerks&nbsp;a reality. In many ways, it&#39;s a student film, but it&#39;s also a master class in how to make real, enduring art on the cheap.&nbsp;

Behind-The-Scenes Stories From The Making Of ‘Clerks’

Jonathan H. Kantor

Lists of fun facts and fascinating photos from production on your favorite films, TV shows, and more.

Behind the Scenes

These are the most dramatic, petty, savage, and entertaining rivalries since Cain & Abel.

Where's the Beef?

Feuds

There are many different voices on a movie set: the director, who is responsible for the look and feel of the film, the actors, who bring their own sensibilities of craft with them to each movie, and the studios and producers, who are responsible for overseeing the financial interests of the film. So who’s the boss? And who makes the final decisions? If there were an easy answer to that question, there wouldn't be so many movies that made changes because of actor feuds.Some actors are notoriously hard to work with. Think that Bill Murray is simply a sweet, funny, comedic genius? Think again. He’s got a reputation for being unkind to people he doesn’t like: just ask Lucy Liu. Several directors also have a bad reputation. Megan Fox publicly compared Michael Bay’s on-set behavior to Hitler, so it’s no wonder why she was subsequently written out of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. These are just a few of the notorious behind-the-scenes fights that changed film plots or the direction of a project. Who knows what kind secret blowups have taken place in an actor’s trailer or in a studio head’s office?&nbsp;Here are 15 behind-the-scenes feuds that changed movies.&nbsp;

Behind the Scenes Feuds That Changed the Direction of Movies

Film

A look behind the scenes of the films that brought Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and the wizarding world to life.

Harry Potter Movie Magic

Harry Potter

The Harry Potter franchise is made even better by one of the best and friendliest casts. Here are some of the best behind the scenes moments captured on Twitter!

25 Behind The Scenes Harry Potter Moments That Were So Wizardly Wholesome

Joshua Rhee

Behind The Scenes lists at Ranker - The ultimate source for hundreds of behind the scenes lists and rankings