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For some actors, sometimes a character — or an entire scenario — can seem terrifyingly real while the cameras are rolling. These actors can jump right to the emotional core of the scene, even when surrounded by dozens of assorted crew-members watching. That's obviously a big help when filming horror movies. Other times, an actor might need a little bit of help from their team getting that authentic fright on screen. Whether they asked for that help or not, here are 12 times where an actor's not just acting scared—they actually are terrified. These are 12 horror movie scenes that scared actors in real life.
For some actors, sometimes a character — or an entire scenario — can seem terrifyingly real while the cameras are rolling. These actors can jump right to the emotional core of the scene, even when surrounded by dozens of assorted crew-members watching. That's obviously a big help when filming horror movies. Other times, an actor might need a little bit of help from their team getting that authentic fright on screen. Whether they asked for that help or not, here are 12 times where an actor's not just acting scared—they actually are terrified. These are 12 horror movie scenes that scared actors in real life.
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00:00 For some actors, sometimes a character, or an entire scenario, can seem terrifyingly
00:05 real.
00:06 Here are the horror movie scenes that actually freaked out the actors who were in them.
00:10 [Screaming]
00:15 Director Ridley Scott replicated a lot in his 1979 horror classic Alien, like the isolation
00:21 of deep space and the unsettling aesthetics of artist H.R. Giger.
00:25 But one thing he couldn't conjure up was authentic fear in his actors.
00:29 For the film's most shocking scene, in which one of the Nostromo's crew members births
00:33 an alien creature out of his chest at the dining table, he got the reaction he wanted
00:38 by simply not telling his cast what was going to go down.
00:41 "How does that happen?"
00:43 "It happens, my dear, because that's what the company wants to happen."
00:46 In the book Cinema Alchemist, Alien art director Roger Christian details how, while the rest
00:51 of the cast were kept away from the set, Scott had the crew lay actor John Hurt under a dummy
00:56 body placed in the table, with only his head and arms exposed.
01:00 Underneath, the special effects crew worked a blood pump and an alien puppet head.
01:05 The results are about as genuine as they come.
01:08 [Screaming]
01:14 Famously, actor Veronica Cartwright recoiled and passed out from the shock of the gag.
01:19 She recovered and finished the scene, but she and her fellow actors' stunned faces will
01:24 last forever.
01:26 Bill Skarsgård terrified audiences everywhere with his new interpretation of Pennywise the
01:31 Dancing Clown in It.
01:33 With a trademark makeup design, sharp teeth, and independently drifting eyes, Skarsgård
01:38 managed to take the iconic role made famous by Tim Curry and turn it into something all
01:43 his own.
01:44 "Well, though, down here, yes we do."
01:48 It was on the set of It Chapter Two, however, that Bill Hader, who played the adult version
01:52 of Richie Tozier, got a little more than he bargained for during an on-set conversation
01:57 between scenes with Skarsgård in full Pennywise gear.
02:01 The Daily Mail published a series of behind-the-scenes photos showing Hader first laughing with Skarsgård
02:06 and then sprinting away from the Pennywise actor in abject terror.
02:10 [Screaming]
02:15 "I'll come back and play!"
02:16 As Hader would clarify during an episode of Conan, his fear was real, as Skarsgård had
02:21 revealed that the signature traveling eye of Pennywise was something Skarsgård could
02:25 do in real life.
02:27 Hader admitted during the press circuit that he struggles to act scared, frequently smiling
02:32 or laughing as a defense mechanism, but credits Skarsgård's ability to scare him for his
02:37 fearful performance as Richie.
02:40 In this 1973 classic, there isn't much that doesn't disturb or disgust, as actor Jason
02:45 Miller discovered firsthand on set.
02:47 The Exorcist star, who plays Father Karras, a young priest who agrees to help a young
02:52 girl who appears to be possessed by a demonic entity, was taken by surprise during one of
02:57 the movie's most harrowing scenes.
02:59 "I'm a friend of your mother's.
03:00 I'd like to help you."
03:01 "You want that loose in the straps, huh?"
03:05 It's an iconic moment when Linda Blair's Reagan projectile vomits on Karras, who is attempting
03:11 to perform an exorcism on the young girl.
03:13 They used a plastic tube inconspicuously attached to the girl's chin for the fake vomit, but
03:18 it actually misfired.
03:20 The accident led the mixture to hit Miller right in the face and mouth, and he was disgusted
03:25 by the mess-up.
03:26 Scream has only become more beloved in the years since Wes Craven's meta-slasher flick
03:32 was first released in 1996.
03:35 One of the most famous elements of the film is the phone calls made by Ghostface to his
03:39 victims, which we get a taste of early on when Drew Barrymore's Casey Becker meets her
03:44 demise in the opening scene.
03:46 As it turns out, Roger Jackson's performance as the voice of the killer managed to really
03:50 scare the actors during production.
03:52 "Do you want to die, Sidney?
03:55 Your mother sure didn't."
03:58 In an oral history compiled by The Hollywood Reporter, producer Mary Ann Maddalena explained
04:03 that they hid Jackson and actually did the calls on set.
04:07 She explained,
04:08 "We had separate rooms.
04:09 He was never around.
04:10 He was never at craft services.
04:12 He was absolutely incognito.
04:14 It made it scary for the actors, and Wes just got better performances out of them.
04:19 It's a completely different thing than a script supervisor reading the lines.
04:23 He has an amazing voice.
04:25 But I don't know how menacing he would be in person, you know?"
04:28 "I'm getting ready to watch a video."
04:30 "Really?
04:31 What?"
04:32 "Oh, just some scary movie."
04:33 "You like scary movies?"
04:35 "Uh-huh."
04:36 "I like scary movies."
04:37 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:38 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:39 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:40 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:41 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:42 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:43 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:44 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:45 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:46 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:47 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:48 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:49 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:50 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:51 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
04:52 "I don't know if I'd watch a movie."
05:21 Now if a light falls in, we'll both fry.
05:24 That seems to have helped her get through the scene, at least.
05:27 "I feel good, Stephen, I really do."
05:31 If a sentient pile of cocaine was allowed to direct a movie, the result would probably
05:36 look a lot like Maximum Overdrive.
05:38 The sole directorial effort from legendary horror writer Stephen King, the film concerns
05:43 an apocalyptic scenario where every machine on the planet turns against its human masters.
05:48 "We made them."
05:51 "You can't!
05:54 We made you!"
05:57 For a scene where a killer lawnmower chases a child through a neighborhood, King insisted
06:02 that the crew not remove the mower's blade, even though it could not be seen in the shot.
06:07 Sadly, this mower would hit a block of wood and send shards directly at cinematographer
06:12 Armando Nanuzzi, who would lose his eye and ultimately sue King and the film's producers.
06:18 Now that's scary.
06:19 King would famously sober up in the late '80s, but Maximum Overdrive remains an unfortunate
06:24 tribute to realism over safety.
06:27 Well, that scene, at least.
06:29 "They can't.
06:31 We made them!"
06:33 The 2012 Alien franchise prequel Prometheus was a new introduction to the series for modern
06:39 audiences, with new takes on some of the original Alien's most gruesome scenes.
06:44 We all remember the original chestburster scene, and actress Numi Rapaz got to deal
06:49 with her own variation on the scare in Prometheus.
06:52 The scene, which features her giving herself abdominal surgery in a medical pod to release
06:57 an unwanted entity from inside her, profoundly affected her.
07:01 "Get it out!
07:03 Come on!
07:04 Please!"
07:06 She told Wired in 2012,
07:07 "I spoke to director Ridley Scott about it and said that I would love to find a way to
07:11 do it as real as possible, to not do it in CGI or to not cut up the scene into small
07:16 pieces.
07:17 We worked for four days on the scene, and it messed me up completely."
07:21 She went on to say that the scene ended up giving her numerous body horror nightmares,
07:26 in which she would wake up crying from the distress.
07:29 Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is one of those films that truly changed cinema forever.
07:33 Not only did it solidify the legendary status of then-established actress Janet Leigh, it
07:39 did the unthinkable.
07:40 It killed her in the first 47 minutes.
07:43 At the time, it was unthinkable to kill off one of your most famous performers so quickly.
07:47 It was upsetting to the audience because it meant all bets were off.
07:50 "We all go a little mad sometimes.
07:54 Haven't you?"
07:57 This established an unshakable sense of dread that no one would forget.
08:01 But what was more shocking than the decision to slay Janet Leigh so quickly was the lasting
08:06 impact that scene had on her psyche.
08:08 After watching herself get murdered in the shower, she seldom took one again unless absolutely
08:13 necessary.
08:14 In an interview with The New York Times in 1996, 35 years after the original release
08:19 of Psycho, she admitted,
08:21 "I stopped taking showers, and I take baths.
08:25 Only baths."
08:26 That is, unless she's staying somewhere that only has a shower, like a friend's place or
08:30 a hotel.
08:31 So how does she get around it in that case?
08:33 She said,
08:34 "I make sure the doors and windows of the house are locked, and I leave the bathroom
08:37 door open and shower curtain open.
08:40 I'm always facing the door, watching, no matter where the showerhead is."
08:51 Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs
08:56 is one of the most chilling portrayals of a serial killer ever committed to film, and
09:00 actually being in the same room as him was even scarier.
09:03 "A census taker once tried to test me.
09:06 I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."
09:13 Hopkins co-star Jodie Foster told Vanity Fair that she didn't get a proper meet-and-greet
09:17 with him before the production began, and she was, quote, "just petrified" during their
09:22 first reading together.
09:24 Hopkins had to be locked in behind the glass wall of Hannibal Lecter's cell at the start
09:28 of filming the majority of their scenes, creating a physical barrier between the actors that
09:33 was reinforced by how little time they spent together off-set.
09:37 Foster was so scared of Hopkins that she completely avoided him except when they had to be in
09:41 the same room to film their scenes.
09:43 It wasn't until the last day of filming that Foster finally admitted to her co-star,
09:47 "I was really scared of you."
09:49 To this, Hopkins humorously replied,
09:51 "Thank you, Clarice.
09:54 Thank you."
09:56 Just kidding, he actually replied, "I was scared of you."
10:00 At only five years old, Ashley Bank solidified her spot in the Horror Girl Hall of Fame when
10:06 she played the youngest and only female member of the Monster Squad, Phoebe Crenshaw.
10:12 Bank hadn't yet understood that monsters were meant to be scary, and has spoken in interviews
10:16 and commentary tracks about how she was able to handle being around Stan Winston's creations,
10:21 like Tom Noonan as Frankenstein's monster, without being scared.
10:25 She also found great joy in seeing the Wolfman in only half of his costume and the Mummy
10:30 walking around without their headpiece.
10:31 However, it was Duncan McGare's performance as Count Dracula that scared the five-year-old
10:36 Bank.
10:37 "He's going to touch my daughter!"
10:43 Bank's reaction is one of the best moments of the film, but it was also one of sincere
10:48 terror as Bank had yet to see Dracula with his red contacts and sharp fangs in.
10:52 Fortunately, though, Bank was not traumatized by the experience, and happily shared the
10:57 story on the commentary track for the Monster Squad.
11:01 If you flipped on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at the right moment, you'd be mistaken
11:05 for some psychedelic '70s experimental horror.
11:08 We all know the nightmarish scene in question.
11:11 Wonka's paddle steamer floats down the Chocolate River and into a tunnel where golden ticket
11:16 holders experience their first acid freakout.
11:19 "What is this, a freakout?"
11:20 Pitch darkness breaks as randomized colors start flashing, subliminal video clips project
11:26 anything from insects crawling over faces to beheaded chickens, and Gene Wilder's deranged
11:31 performance as Wonka goes from eerie singing to enthusiastic screaming directly at his
11:37 passengers.
11:38 Thanks to director Mel Stewart, you can see the abject terror plastered on the faces of
11:43 children and adults alike in the scene.
11:45 He didn't tell any of the performers how Wilder would behave in character for that particular
11:49 sequence, which led some of the younger actors to believe Wilder was suffering a very sincere,
11:55 very alarming psychotic breakdown.
11:58 All that confusion, anxiousness, and full-blown terror is real.
12:02 "Why does the show stuff like that on TV?"
12:04 "I don't know."
12:05 Okay, this one isn't about a single scene, but only because the whole movie is so freaky.
12:11 The Blair Witch Project worked so well because it felt so real, not just to the audience,
12:16 but to the cast, too.
12:18 Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard were tasked with wandering
12:22 through the woods and capturing their own footage to create the faux documentary, all
12:26 while directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez followed at a distance.
12:30 When the three actors weren't watching, the directors would sneak into their campsite
12:34 to leave spooky rocks and twigs, or even scarier, rattle their tent at night.
12:39 "What bugs me out is that we're so damn deep in the woods, and people are gonna try and
12:44 come out here and mess with us, then they gotta have something wrong with them."
12:47 There was no script, just a general outline, leaving the cast at the mercy of the elements
12:52 and the filmmakers.
12:53 In a sense, it was almost like the filmmakers were hunting the cast members through the
12:57 woods.
12:59 Just like the Blair Witch herself, the compelling results came to define an entire genre, with
13:04 countless filmmakers subsequently attempting to capture the lo-fi magic of found-footage
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