"This Film Should Never Have Been Done" – From Silly Sex Scenes To Setting The Studio On Fire, 15 Things That Didn't Go To Plan While Filming Major Movies And TV Shows

"You don't fill a woman up with beans, lay her down on her tummy and tell her to yell."

Making a movie or TV show is no walk in the park – things always go wrong. Also, the smooth, finished pictures we see usually have funny, embarrassing, or even pretty terrifying behind-the-scenes stories to them.

HBO

So, here are 15 things that went pretty wrong on the TV and film sets:

1. The Wolf of Wall Street

Universal Pictures

According to Jonah Hill, during the filming of The Wolf of Wall Street, he was constantly being roughed up by Leonardo Di Caprio (in a friendly way, of course). He said: 

"We had fight scenes in the movie where we have to play physical with each other, and he basically beat the crap out of me for six months – and he's bigger than me, so I couldn't really retaliate and cause damage. I was like, 'I have to get this guy back. What do I do?'" 

Well, in classic Jonah style, he improvised his way to his own back. In one of the more emotional scenes they were having, towards the end of the scene Leo's character, Jordan was supposed to offer Jonah's character, Donnie the last piece of sushi. It was scripted that Donnie should accept, but instead, Jonah improvised saying "no, you have it." Seems pretty innocent, right? Wrong. Jonah explained how this worked out: 

"So he had to do 100 takes of eating over and over again and I was like, 'This is my revenge right here'. By the end of the night, he was on the floor, throwing up into a waste bin and everyone was like, 'Leo, are you okay?'"

Take a look at the scene here:

youtube.com

2. Spectre

Sony Pictures Releasing

The notorious fictional spy is famed for being rather resilient when it comes to pain, and Daniel Craig certainly channelled his Bond during the filming of Spectre. During the shoot, the actor actually broke his leg in a scene with Dave Bautista, leaving him and the production team with a choice, as he explained:

"We could shut down for nine months and I could go and get an operation, or I could crack on with the movie and I didn’t want to shut down for nine months.”

So he decided to persevere with the filming, and through "excruciating pain" and being "barely able to walk", Daniel, with the help of a bionic leg, kept doing his own stunts to finish the movie. Now that sounds painful. 

Here's the scene where he broke it, and which he filmed again with a brace on:

youtube.com

3. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Paramount Pictures

One iconic scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark could have looked very different if it wasn't for the unfortunate suffering of Harrison Ford. During the filming, Harrison came down with dysentery – something that doesn't particularly allow for long, uninterrupted shoots. 

So, when it came to shooting the scene where it was supposed to be the ultimate battle between sword and whip, Harrison could barely leave his trailer for over 10 minutes at a time. With three days of shooting coming up, he had to figure a way around it, as he explained: 

“I was puzzling how to get out of this three days of shooting, so when I got to set I proposed to Steven that we just shoot the son a b***h and Steve said 'I was thinking that as well.'"

It was a shame for the stuntman, who'd flown over and practised for months for the part, only to be swiftly dispatched. But thankfully the scene remains iconic to this day. 

Here's the scene:

youtube.com

4. The Last Man on Earth

Fox

However sex scenes look on screen, they can always prove a bit tricky or awkward for the actors – obviously. Well, when filming The Last Man On Earth, Kristen Schaal and Will Forte had a rather funny mishap during their sex scene. 

Speaking about the incident, Kristen revealed that they actually shot the scene where she's consuming loads of beans first, which they did a couple of takes for. So when it got around to doing the sex scene, she was pretty full of beans. 

She remembered what it was like laying on top of Will, having to talk ferociously as "the beans were having their heyday" and eventually she just had to say to Will "I'm gonna fart on you." She then farted on him again, but it seemed all quite funny. She then joked about calling up her union, saying: "You don't fill a woman up with beans, lay her down on her tummy and tell her to yell."

Watch her talking about the scene here:

youtube.com

5. Mad Men

AMC

I'm sure we've all had a few wardrobe malfunctions down the years, but it must be a bit more stressful when you're under pressure to be back on set in a moment – which is exactly what happened to Alison on the set of Mad Men. 

For her outfit, Alison was given underwear that she describes as looking like "biker shorts that go all the way up to your ribs” that had a little hole for going to the toilet. What she didn't realise was that you weren't supposed to wear your own underwear under them, which she of course did with hygiene in mind. 

Just before a scene, she ran to the bathroom to go to the toiler, and she explained what happened: "I tried to pull the hole open, but I didn't pull my underwear to the side so I'm peeing and not hearing it hit the bowl and then I just feel warmth. It was full pee."

Worrying that she was holding up filming, and not wanting to jeopardise anything, she rushed back on set. After she'd awkwardly completed "several takes," the costume designer, who'd noticed something was up, helped her out, and reassured her saying this “wouldn’t be the first time!”

Here's Alison talking about the incident on Late Night With Seth Meyers:

youtube.com

6. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Warner Bros. Pictures

Chocolate can be expensive, right? Well, they certainly found that out on the set of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When filming, the crew were hoisting a camera on a wire over a three-foot vat of chocolate when a lens that wasn't secured fell in. The expensive and tasty error reportedly cost the production $900,000...

Watch the chocolatey trailer here:

youtube.com

7. Masters of Sex

Showtime

Back to sex scenes, and this was a specific misunderstanding that I personally would have been worrying about. It was when Lizzy Caplan and Michael Sheen were filming their first intimate scene for Masters of Sex, and it was already kind of nerve-wracking, as Lizzy remembered: 

"I was scared mainly because he was my friend at that point and I don’t conduct myself in that way with my friends generally... I begin the unbuttoning of the blouse and I notice that I’m very nervous and my hands are shaking."

But it's what happened after the scene that worried her more:

"[When] we complete the scene, I place the hand on my breast and they yell cut and he immediately walks over to a garbage can and throws up."

She was initially worried that it was her that had caused him to throw up, and her confidence "plummeted to the ground." She would have been relieved to find out that he just had food poisoning, and it wasn't anything to do with her. 

Here's the trailer:

youtube.com

8. Game of Thrones

HBO

It sounded like a fair amount of funny antics and incidents went down on the set of the hit HBO show, but two that are particularly silly involve actor Emilia Clarke. 

The first was when she and Jason Momoa were getting intimate with one another in a scene, and Jason's choice of clothing made it tricky for Emilia Clarke to keep a straight face. 

"So obviously there's nudity and you kind of have to try to lighten the mood. [He] decided to not use a modesty sock but use a beautiful pink, fluffy sock. So getting that close-up of me looking petrified, just like, 'I didn't want it to happen' [drew] lots of laughter — 'It's huge and it's big and I don't know what to do!'"

She also got into a spot of bother with all of the fake blood she was constantly being covered in. She said that she was always sticking to herself and other things, and at one point, she disappeared off to the toilet and ended up getting stuck to the toilet seat...

Watch one of their scenes here:

youtube.com

9. Whiplash

Sony Pictures Classics

Accidents happen in all lines of work, and actors can be particularly passionate when they're in the moment in a scene. It was actually Miles Teller's favourite scene where he inflicted a bit of damage on his costar, J.K Simmons. 

It occurred during the scene where Miles' character, Andrew finally breaks after all the torment he's received from J.K's character, Fletcher, and charges at him from the drum kit. When he actually dove and barged into him, apparently he broke one of J.K's ribs in the process. Ah well, at least J.K got the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor to make it all worth it. 

Take a look at the scene here:

youtube.com

10. Fight Club

20th Century Fox

If you picture Helena Bonham Carter's character from the movie you'll no doubt see her in a mist of cigarette smoke. In fact, the director, David Fincher had a particular idea about how the smoke should look, as Helena explained: 

“He got obsessed with the smoke. It had to float in a particular way. So I was just always sitting there in a cemetery of cigarette butts.”

Well during the shoot, the amount of smoke Helena was around caused some real problems for her: 

“I had to have an x-ray because I got bronchitis — surprise, surprise — during the six months of filming. And Fincher does so many takes and lots of smoke shots."

Have a look ar Marla here:

youtube.com

11. Roar

Filmways Pictures

Of all the cursed films out there, the filming of Roar stands up to pretty much all of them, and I have honestly no idea how this was allowed to happen. During the 11-year filming process, the cast and crew were working/living with reportedly untrained and unrestrained wild animals – from lions and leopards to elephants – with no trained professionals on site. 

Not only was there a severe flooding problem caused by a dam, but there were also multiple (up to a hundred) cases of the cast and crew being attacked by wild animals. 

The director and lead, Noel Marshall received his fair share of injuries including being bitten through the hand by a lion and having eight puncture wounds in his leg from a lion. He'd been bitten 11 times by the time he was hospitalised for chest and face injuries from animal attacks and was diagnosed with blood poisoning and gangrene... 

Producer and costar Tippi Hedren was also severely injured. She was bitten on the head by a lion, with its teeth scraping her skull. She also had a five-ton elephant break her ankle and was scratched by a leopard. 

Other incidents include a cinematographer, Jan de Bont being scalped by a lion, and receiving 220 sutures before returning to work (WHY!?). Actor Melanie Griffin was also attacked by a lioness, and another one jumped onto actor John Marshall's back to bite his head. 

Speaking about the movie, here's what John had to say: 

“I ran away from that film. It had taken a lot more of my life than I had planned on... I don’t regret it. I’m just saying, intellectually, this film should never have been done. These are wild animals. You should not be with wild animals.”

Here's the trailer for the re-release:

youtube.com

12. Battlestar Galactica

Sci-Fi

One large expense for TV shows and films is the actual set itself, including all the things built, bought, or borrowed to make it look just the way it's supposed to. Well, this can mean that props can sometimes be worth a fair amount of money, something that Battlestar Galactica actor Edward James Olmos found out a bit too late. 

In a scene where his character smashed up a small model ship – something he clearly wasn't directed to do – he was actually destroying a model boat worth $200,000. That's one costly misunderstanding. 

I presume this is the scene where it happened:

youtube.com

You can also stream the full series on Peacock.

13. Jack Reacher

Paramount Pictures

You'll all know that Tom Cruise insists on doing his own stunts, and has suffered his fair share of injuries on set including broken legs, noses, and all sorts. But one of the funnier injuries came on the set of Jack Reacher. 

The actor revealed that the worst injury he received while filming, was when his foot swelled up shooting one particular scene:

"There's a scene where I'm kicking a guy in the balls, the testicles. It was a human being, [but] no testicles were injured in the making of the film! We had to do the takeover and over again, and the first 10 times it was like: 'Yeah!' After about 50 times in, my foot was swelling ... I kept having to loosen my shoe."

I'm just wondering what the other guy thought by the time the 50th take rolled around...

Chek out the scene here:

youtube.com

14. Troy

Warner Bros. Pictures

There were also some stumbles in the road during the filming of Troy. There was one interruption in the form of a hurricane that roles through their million-dollar set and destroyed all sorts of props. 

Another incident, that was soaked in irony, is when the lead Brad Pitt who played Achilles was injured doing one of the film's many stunts. The irony was that he injured his Achilles tendon, his fabled weak point written about in Homer's The Illiad. 

While Brad saw the irony of this, the productions team probably didn't, as shooting had to be delayed several weeks until he recovered. 

Take a look at the trailer here:

youtube.com

15. The Avengers

Warner Bros.

During the filming of the movie remake of The Avengers TV show, back in 1997, there was one disastrous accident that brought the action on screen very much to the real world. It was a day when the team had planned to film a controlled explosion at the Pinewood Studios, but things went very wrong when the explosion caused a fire in the studios that was certainly not intentional or "controlled." 

Thankfully, no one was severely injured, and the film's stars Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes weren't actually there. Although one of the studio's own firefighting team was taken to hospital for smoke inhalation. A total of 60 firefighters were called to the scene and they were able to get the blaze under control. 

Have a look at the trailer here:

youtube.com

What are the wildest, funniest, or scariest behind-the-scenes stories you've heard? Let us know in the comments below!