We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us their favorite unscripted movie moments. Here are the iconic results.
🚨 Warning: Spoilers ahead 🚨
1.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Tom Holland improvised his final lines before disintegrating and turning to dust.
Marvel
Joe Russo, who was a co-director on the film, told Tom Holland to “act like you don’t want to go.” The rest was movie magic.
2.
In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Gene Wilder improvised his character’s limp + somersault during Wonka’s opening entrance.
Wolper Pictures
No one had seen Willy Wonka in years, so Wilder wanted to come out of the factory with a limp and then fall into a somersault because it’d reveal a lot about his character: “From that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”
3.
In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Elizabeth Banks purposefully went off-script to say that the Capitol’s library was made of mahogany, which referenced her famous line from the first movie.
Lionsgate
After she ad-libbed the line, the director yelled cut. She begged the director to keep the line in the film, stating that the fans would go crazy. She was right.
4.
In Fast & Furious 6, The Rock ad-libbed this insult, making Ludacris literally spit out his drink from laughing too hard.
Universal Pictures
5.
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Tom Felton, aka Draco Malfoy, forgot his line while shooting and improvised an even better one.
Warner Bros.
Felton’s accidental “I didn’t know you could read” line was ironically his favorite line from the whole series.
6.
In Call Me By Your Name, Timothée Chalamet improvised that final bit where his character looked directly into the camera’s lens.
7.
In The Usual Suspects, the lineup scene was supposed to be done straight-faced, but Benicio Del Toro kept farting and no one could get through the scene without laughing.
Gramercy Pictures
Apparently the director was pretty annoyed about it at first, but the lineup scene is now an iconic moment in movie history.
8.
In Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. deviated from the script and ad-libbed the famous “I am Iron Man” line.
Marvel
Marvel’s Kevin Feige said that this ad-lib “inspired us to go further in trusting ourselves to find balance of staying true to the comics and the spirit of the comics but not being afraid to adapt and evolve and to change things.”
9.
In Roman Holiday, legend had it that if a liar stuck their hand in the Mouth of Truth monument, it would be bitten off, so Gregory Peck stuck his hand inside, screamed, and scared the heck out of Audrey Hepburn.
Paramount Pictures
According to Turner Classic Movies, Peck was inspired by Red Skelton’s old comedy bit and “decided to play the gag on Hepburn without warning her ahead of time. The ruse worked, and the camera forever immortalized Hepburn’s genuine shock, just before she dissolves into fits of laughter.”
10.
In Goodfellas, Joe Pesci improvised the whole “funny how” scene with Ray Liotta based on a story he told during rehearsal.
Warner Bros.
Martin Scorsese liked the story so much that he wanted it included into the script: “However, he did not tell anyone outside of Pesci and Liotta that the scene would be improvised, because he wanted to see their genuine surprised reactions.”
11.
In Midnight Cowboy, a cab driver almost ran over Dustin Hoffman during the shot, to which he slammed on the car and yelled, “I’m walkin’ here!”
United Artists
Hoffman revealed that the budget for the film was so low that they didn’t use extras for a lot of scenes, so when he and Jon Voight crossed the street and a cab driver jumped the light, he wanted to stay in character: “I wound up saying, ‘I’m walkin’ here!’ But what was going through my head is: ‘Hey, we’re makin’ a movie here! And you just fucked this shot up.'”
12.
In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Steve Carell’s chest was waxed for the very first time, and he didn’t think it was going to hurt, so all of his reactions were genuine.
Apatow Productions
Before shooting the scene, he said, “I’m sure most of what I’m going to be doing out there is acting and not reacting… I’m not going to try to imagine the pain, because I’m sure what I can imagine will be worse than what I’m going to experience.” He was wrong.
13.
In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. improvised that whole “hug” scene.
14.
In Django Unchained, Leo DiCaprio accidentally cut his hand open while filming a scene but decided to keep acting anyway, even smearing the blood all over Kerry Washington’s face.
The Weinstein Company
Leo said that the cast and crew gave him a standing ovation after the scene was finished, and he kept acting in the scene because “it was more interesting to watch Quentin’s and Jamie’s reaction off-camera than to look at my hand.”
15.
In Clue, Madeline Kahn’s “flames on the side of my face” speech was the only improvised line in the entire movie.
Paramount Pictures
Michael McKean, who played Mr. Green, said: “All that was written was, ‘I hated her so much that I wanted to kill her,’ or something like that. But she just kind of went into a fugue about hatred. She did it three or four times, and each time was funnier than the last.”
16.
In Alien, only John Hurt knew that the alien was going to explode out of his chest, so the other actors’ horrified reactions were absolutely real, even making one actress faint.
20th Century Fox
Ronald Shusett, one of the producers on the film, said that it was pure pandemonium on the set: “Veronica Cartwright… when the blood hit her, she passed out. I heard from Yaphet Kotto’s wife that after that scene he went to his room and wouldn’t talk to anybody.”
17.
In To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Noah Centineo improvised that glorious pocket spin, which immediately made everyone swoon.
18.
In You’ve Got Mail, Tom Hanks exited the bookstore while carrying balloons and a goldfish, but the balloons accidentally got caught in the door, so he said, “Good thing it wasn’t the fish.”
Warner Bros.
19.
In Jaws, upon seeing the great white shark for the first time, Roy Scheider ad-libbed one of the most iconic lines in movie history.
Universal Pictures
Scheider actually ad-libbed that line in a few different scenes, but they ultimately paired it with the time he first saw the shark.
20.
In Blade Runner, Rutger Hauer improvised most of his “tears in rain” speech at the end of the movie, which actually made the screenwriter a little jealous.
Warner Bros.
David Peoples, one of the screenwriters, was a little hesitant when Hauer started to go off-book: “He looked at me like a naughty little boy, like he was checking to see if the writer was going to be upset… I was a little upset and threatened by it. Later, seeing the movie, that was a brilliant contribution of Rutger’s… It is absolutely beautiful.”
21.
In Clueless, Donald Faison improvised “I’m keepin’ it real” during the head shaving scene, based on something he heard a kid in his neighborhood say.
Paramount Pictures
In an interview, he said: “Some kid in my neighborhood said, ‘Just keep it real. Just make sure you keep it real.’ And I was like, ‘Oh. That’s what the kids are saying now?’ And so I put that in there myself.'”
22.
In Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Henry Cavill improvised that double-loaded arm punch, and the director liked it so much he made him do it in every take.
23.
And in Aladdin, Robin Williams went off-script allllll the time, and the animators actually loved it.
Disney
In an interview, Disney animator Eric Goldberg commented on how much Robin Williams improvised, saying, “Did I see Robin doing any improvisation? That would be like saying, ‘Did you see the pope wearing his vestments?’ He turned into a game show host, an evangelist.”
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