If you've seen the movie — and TBH if you haven't, I don't know what to tell you other than watch it immediately — you'll probably recall this scene.
It came about after Maria took all seven of the von Trapp children out for the day, where they sang and danced all over Salzburg.
At the end of the day, they hopped in a boat. Rowing across the lake, they sang their hearts out before arriving at the gates of their home to see their father waiting. The children jumped up and started waving at him only for the boat to capsize, with the whole group falling in the water.
The scene is not only funny and endearing but also the catalyst for much of the drama in the second half of the movie.
However, Julie Andrews — who of course played Maria von Trapp — has now revealed that the scene actually almost went horribly wrong.
Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, Andrews revealed that despite the scene being shot in open water, Kym Karath — who played the youngest child Gretl, and was five at the time — couldn't actually swim.
"We were filming on the water in a row boat," Andrews explained. "I was supposed to stand up and we would all fall out."
She went on: "At the very last minute, just before the scene, the assistant director said, 'The little one can't swim, so when you fall out of the boat, can you get to her quickly!'"
Andrews then explained that she wasn't given any time to object. And when it came to the moment the boat capsized, she accidentally fell in the wrong direction meaning that reaching Karath became a legit rescue operation.
She said: "Well, of course, I fell back instead of forward and I had to swim like mad to get to her. The poor kid. I could see her flailing away. She went under at least twice, came up
and then threw up!"
Luckily Karath was saved by the actor who played Louisa, Heather Menzies, and all was OK in the end.
It's not the first time that Andrews has revealed the unglamorous reality of shooting iconic scenes from the movie.
Back in 2017, she revealed that, while the film's opening scene in which she spins around on the Austrian hills may look incredible, it wasn't exactly an enjoyable experience to shoot.
Speaking on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Andrews said that in order to get that big, sweeping shot, the production team strapped a cameraman to the side of a helicopter which would then swoop through the mountains and fly right up close to her.
"Every time the helicopter finished, it went around me," she explained, "But the downdraft from the jet engines just flung me into the grass. And so we did this about six or seven times, and I was spitting dirt and hay and things like that. And I kept saying, 'Couldn't you take a wider circle around?!'"
You can watch the full Jimmy Fallon interview with Julie Andrews here.
