Six times an on-set feud made a film more real

On-set feuds can make film­ing hell for all those involved, but some­times they can add a lay­er of dra­mat­ic real­ism to a project. In light of Paul Thomas Anderson’s recent com­ments about clash­ing with Burt Reynolds dur­ing the mak­ing of Boo­gie Nights, here’s a quick run­down of some noto­ri­ous behind-the-scenes spats which had a notable impact on the end product.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s sec­ond fea­ture was not with­out its ups and downs. Pro­duc­tion was fraught with fist fights and inflat­ed egos, not unlike the film’s plot itself. In a 2017 IndieWire inter­view Ander­son com­ment­ed, ​“When it’s the good times and everybody’s got their silk dis­co pants on and every­thing, we’re hav­ing a ball… but when it starts to get cocaine-glossy and hang­overs… It was the mid­dle of sum­mer, it was real­ly hot, and we were all stuck togeth­er in that house for a long time, and things were just – they were heated.”

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford’s bit­ter per­son­al rival­ry is the stuff of Hol­ly­wood leg­end, with Davis once famous­ly quip­ping, ​“I wouldn’t piss on her if she was on fire.” The film for which they are arguably best remem­bered was over­shad­owed by the actors’ vehe­ment dis­like of each oth­er. Davis also lat­er remarked, ​“The best time I ever had with Joan Craw­ford was when I pushed her down the stairs in What Ever Hap­pened to Baby Jane!”

“This was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie.” This com­ment made by Streep to the Tele­graph refers to the shock­ing moment Dustin Hoff­man struck her as the cam­eras rolled on the set of Robert Benton’s Oscar-win­ning dra­ma – her co-star hav­ing become too caught up in his method act­ing. Though it now makes for uncom­fort­able view­ing, there’s no deny­ing the pow­er of this emo­tion­al­ly-charged scene.

That Debra Winger had a tumul­tuous time on the set of Terms of Endear­ment is well doc­u­ment­ed. The actor’s mood swings and cocaine-fuelled rages prompt­ed co-star Shirley MacLaine to dri­ve to the air­port one evening to escape the shoot. Hence McLaine’s emphat­ic cry of ​“I deserve this!” when her Best Actress win was announced at the 56^th Acad­e­my Awards. Appar­ent­ly the feel­ing was mutu­al, as a remorse­less Winger revealed on an episode of The View in 2008: ​“Time heals all wounds? Let’s just say that it’s not applic­a­ble in this case.”

The com­ing togeth­er of two larg­er-than-life per­son­al­i­ties was bound to lead to fire­works. Sell­ers and Welles’ rival­ry came to a head on the set of Casi­no Royale – the pair’s only col­lab­o­ra­tion – with the lat­ter quot­ed as jest­ing: ​“The fact that Princess Mar­garet was stop­ping by every day at my house was unknown to Sell­ers. One day she came to the set to have lunch with Peter, or so he claimed. He couldn’t wait to tell the cast and crew who he was din­ing with. Then she walked past him and said, ​‘Hel­lo, Orson, I haven’t seen you for days!’ That was the real end. That’s when we couldn’t speak lines to each oth­er. ​‘Orson, I haven’t seen you for days!’ absolute­ly killed him. He went white as a sheet, because he was going to present me!”

Jamie Foxx and LL Cool J may have been play­ing rivals in Any Giv­en Sun­day, but a lit­tle-known fact is that they didn’t get along in real life either. In his 2002 stand-up com­e­dy spe­cial ​‘I Might Need Secu­ri­ty’, Foxx colour­ful­ly refers to the inci­dent: ​“How do get into it with LL Cool J… Once he hat­ed on me, I had to hate him back.” Every­thing died down until LL Cool J recount­ed the event in a 2017 inter­view with the Drink Champs pod­cast: ​“So, we did anoth­er take, and I was rough with him again. And, then, I don’t know why, but he thought it was a good idea to punch me in my face. This wasn’t script­ed… He punched me in my face.”