From Margot Robbie To David Schwimmer, These Actors Have All Opened Up About Their Worst Scenes To Film

"The bugs would go in and out of your clothes – you couldn't make that not happen."

Let's face it: acting is no walk in the park. Even seasoned actors have had to do scenes they hated filming! Whether it's the things they have to do or the places they have to film in, some scenes can be really arduous or uncomfortable to shoot.

NBC

Here are 15 actors who have admitted to hating filming scenes, plus their reasons why...

Content warning: this post contains references to sexual assault, animal abuse, and disordered eating.

1. Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson – Water for Elephants

David James / 20th Century Studios

Kissing and intimate scenes are probably never that fun, but this one in particular seemed to be quite grim for both Reese and Rob. During their kissing scene in Water for Elephants, neither of the two had a good time, mainly due to Rob's bad cold and its side effects. As he put it:

"I was doing it when I had a really bad cold. My nose is running all over the place, and it was in one of the additional photography scenes, and Reese had this wig on, and literally, I was wiping my nose on her wig."

Here's the scene:

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2. Bryan Cranston – Breaking Bad

AMC

Bryan had a really tough time filming the scene where Walt stands over Jane and watches her die. It's an evil act, and Bryan couldn't help but picture his own daughter there as he shot it: "My real daughter's face took her place. So it just hits me."

He went on to talk about how impactful it was for the development of Walt: "I remember thinking it was pretty fucked up that Walt would just let a young girl... die in front of him, but I certainly didn't realise that it would be such a pivotal moment for the show."

Here it is:

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3. Kit Harington – Game of Thrones

HBO

For Kit, his main problem with filming Game of Thrones involved his scenes with the dragon, and how silly the whole shooting process felt. He even mentioned that Emilia had complained about it for four seasons, but he didn't think it could be that bad, until it was his turn.

"She was absolutely right. It was horrific. It's not acting at all. It is not acting, it never will be acting, and it is not what I'd signed up for. It is very uncomfortable." 

Check it out:

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4. Kate Capshaw – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Paramount Pictures

That iconic scene with the tunnel of bugs in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is pretty horrible to watch, let alone film! It's unsurprising that Kate found the whole thing pretty stressful, so much so that she had to take a Valium to get through it:

"The bugs were really gross, really bad. I think I took a Valium. Steven was there every second, he wasn't gonna make me do anything that he wouldn't stand next to me for. The bugs would go in and out of your clothes – you couldn't make that not happen."

Here it is:

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5. Zoey Deutch – Set It Up

Netflix

Zoe was excited to get to the pizza-eating scene in Set It Up, I mean, you get to eat pizza, right? Well, it requires quite a few takes to get things right in Hollywood, so she ended up eating way more pizza than she intended: 

"Glen [Powell] was smart. He was careful. He was wise. I ended up eating four full pizzas — four full, large pizzas — from Joe's Pizza, and I threw up violently halfway through the scene."

To make matters worse, she then had to get really close to Glen to finish the scene, after she'd just thrown up: "I had to proceed to be very close to Glen Powell, who now, I think, looks at me in a very different light." Thankfully, the experience didn't put her off pizza!

Here's the scene:

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6. Margot Robbie – Suicide Squad

Warner Bros. Pictures

Margot's transformation scene in the bucket of chemicals during Suicide Squad was apparently one of the "most unpleasant things" she's ever done in her entire life. Explaining why it was so grim, she said: 

"It was like this gluggy paint stuff that was so far in my ears and up my nose, and I was choking on it underwater, and I couldn't breathe, and I tried to open my eyes, and it would glaze over my eyeballs, and I could only see white. It was horrible."

That does sound pretty horrible, TBF.

Take a look:

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7. David Schwimmer – Friends

NBC

David Schwimmer really didn't enjoy the scenes with Marcel in Friends. Not only did they have to do takes over and over again, which annoyed and delayed everyone on set, but the monkey would also stay on his shoulder in between takes. This meant that as the monkey was getting fed with live bugs, these would spill all over David.

Speaking about the experience, the actor said: "It was time for Marcel to... to f*ck off." This wasn't the first time David had complained about the monkey on set. In an interview back in 1995, he explained how he wasn't allowed to form a bond with the monkey, and said: "I hate the monkey… I wish it were dead."

Here they are:

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8. Adam Brown – The Hobbit

New Line Cinema

Adam played Ori in The Hobbit, and has talked about one one scene in particular that was pretty gross, especially for him. It was the scene in Laketown when the dwarves all hide in barrels of fish in order to avoid detection, which wasn't ideal for Adam:

"I've always had a phobia of fish, so when we did the barrel scene in Laketown it was like doing a bush tucker trial! With all the CGI used in the film, you would have thought it would be a barrel full of computer generated fish… oh no. I was covered in fish juice, head to toe."

That sounds bad even without the phobia of fish.

Have a look:

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9. Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Lionsgate

Sticking with fish, which are apparently no fun to film with, Jennifer Lawrence recalled one of her worst scenes to film, and it was during The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: 

"I had to eat a raw fish. And not like a sushi raw fish. I held a fish and had to eat it. And for the record, it tastes exactly how it smells."

It probably didn't help that Jennifer didn't even like fish anyway, so I can understand why that was so unpleasant.

10. Francis Lawrence and the cast of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

Lionsgate

On the subject of The Hunger Games, there was one scene in Mockingjay Part 2 that pretty much no one enjoyed filming. Of course, it was the sewer scene, which director Francis Lawrence described as "absolutely the most miserable three weeks." 

Jennifer Lawrence, who agreed with Francis about how tough the scene was to shoot, felt for Liam Hemsworth, whose height made it an even trickier shoot for him: "Poor Liam couldn’t stand up straight for three weeks."

Josh Hutcherson added that the suits were not waterproof, and that they had pockets which would fill up with the water.

Have a look here:

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11. Julianne Moore – After the Wedding

Sony Pictures Classics

Sex scenes must be pretty awkward at the best of times, but how about doing a sex scene when your husband is the director? That's exactly what Julianne Moore had to do for her scene in After the Wedding. 

Speaking about shooting the intimate scene in front of her husband, Bart Freundlich, and sex scenes in general, she said: "I hated it! I was like, 'Why do we have to do this?' But I don't really like to do it with anybody."

Have a look here:

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12. Denzel Washington – The Equalizer

Sony Pictures Releasing

The end of The Equalizer looks pretty cool, but by the time they'd wrapped filming, Denzel didn't care what it looked like, he just wanted to stop. This was because the scene, with the sprinklers going off, took multiple 13-hour days of filming, and pretty much the whole time Denzel was under the sprinklers, dripping wet.

Have a look here:

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13. Kate Winslet – Titanic

20th Century Fox

Kate has called the whole experience of filming James Cameron's romance epic an "ordeal", but the scenes in particular that were most horrible to film were the ones in freezing water because, well, they were in freezing water!

The actor contracted hypothermia, and has revealed that the scene where Rose and Jack were running from a wave nearly caused her to drown from her coat getting stuck and submerging her. "I had to sort of shimmy out of the coat to get free. I had no breath left. I thought I'd burst."

Here she is in the water:

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14. Robert Pattinson – The Lighthouse

A24

Robert has shared that shooting this gritty horror was actually "the closest [he's] come to punching a director." Specifically, he was referencing a scene in which his character is walking across the beach getting sprayed by the ocean. The repeated takes took a toll on Robert:

"However much I love Robert [Eggers], there was a point where I did five takes walking across the beach, and after a while I was like, 'What the fuck is going on? I feel like you're just spraying a fire hose in my face'."

To be fair to Robert (Pattinson), that does sound very annoying.

15. Isla Fisher – Now You See Me

Lionsgate

Isla suffered a nightmarish experience when performing the escape stunt in Now You See Me. In the scene, she's submerged in a tank filled with water and chained up. Somehow, the chains around her got tangled around her ankles and she was stuck, unable to reach the panic button.

The actor was thrashing around in the tank, but people outside just thought she was acting. The cameras were on her the whole time, and you can actually see what happened in the movie. Isla managed to break free thanks to a quick-release switch and a stuntman standing nearby after two and a half minutes of holding her breath!

Have a look here:

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Know any other scenes that actors hated filming? Let us know in the comments below!