Behind the scenes, it was anything but romanticized. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the memorable moments in our favorite rom coms that were not nearly as magical behind the scenes.
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00:00We started that number, good morning, good morning, and it was night time when we finished,
00:05and we were really finished.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the memorable moments in
00:11our favorite rom-coms that were not nearly as magical behind the scenes.
00:16Literally, as I went, I can do it, he disarmed me. I didn't even see it coming.
00:21And he went, you were saying?
00:24Number 10. The Helicopter Rescue, Anyone But You.
00:27You're not getting in that water, mate. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we're gonna be in the water.
00:30He goes, it's the shakiest waters in all of Australia.
00:32In this enemies-to-lovers story, Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney play two single people who
00:37pretend to date each other during a destination wedding. In a typical series of mishaps and
00:42romantic gestures, they end up stranded in the Pacific Ocean together.
00:46Promise me if we make it out alive, we'll go see that from dry land.
00:50It's a pretty killer view from here.
00:51As sweet and exhilarating as it appears on screen,
00:54Powell later addressed his very real concerns about shooting the scene.
00:59While being in open water at night can be frightening enough,
01:02a horrific accident wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Apparently,
01:06the rescue helicopter was having mechanical issues, and they had to make an emergency landing.
01:12All of a sudden, the helicopter starts kind of quivering. And I, and Sydney and Will,
01:17who's the director, looked at me and they go, hey, is that normal? And I was like…
01:21Number 9. Flowers, Sir? City Lights
01:24Charlie Chaplin was famously exacting and methodical as a performer and filmmaker.
01:29He was a perfectionist, and to us it often seemed to be exactly the same. But to him it was not.
01:38In the romantic comedy City Lights, his trademark tramp character meets and quickly falls for a
01:43blind flower seller on the street. Unfortunately for leading lady Virginia Cheryl, Chaplin was not
01:49taken with her offscreen. One sequence took days to shoot, as Chaplin kept calling for more and
01:55more takes of the first-time film actor simply offering his character a flower.
02:00And when he'd finally say, it's a take, we'd breathe a sigh of relief, and then he'd say,
02:05well, perhaps just one more time.
02:07The silent master was so frustrated with her performance,
02:10he ended up reshooting the scene months later. By then, their tension had only grown.
02:15He even tried to replace Cheryl late in the shoot.
02:18Chaplin soon realized he needed to bring Cheryl back. After all, as you just saw,
02:22she was quite good. But Cheryl now had leverage, and while she was eager to return,
02:27she got Chaplin to agree to a significant raise, double her previous rate,
02:32before she returned to finish the picture.
02:34Needless to say, the story behind this meet-cute isn't cute at all.
02:38Number 8. The Waxing Appointment, The 40-Year-Old Virgin
02:42See that whole Teen Wolf thing you got going right there? You need to wax that right out. Boom.
02:47Does it hurt?
02:48No. Waxing don't hurt.
02:50The same year The Office premiered, Steve Carell started to become a household name
02:54off the back, or should we say, chest, of this raunchy sex comedy. In it, his pals become so
03:00invested in his first intimate experience that they take him to get some manscaping done.
03:05This includes a full chest wax. For the sake of realism,
03:09Carell really did have his chest hairs pulled out for the scene.
03:12That one hurt. That one hurt just as much as the first one.
03:16That's great, man.
03:18Not only that, but actress Mickey Mia, who played the waxing technician,
03:22wasn't totally honest in her audition. Apparently,
03:25she hadn't really been trained to do the procedure.
03:28I think she was told that they needed someone
03:31to wax a chest, and she said that she was proficient at it.
03:34It turns out she had tried once to wax her boyfriend's back,
03:39and obviously that didn't go well either.
03:41No one can say Carell doesn't suffer for his art.
03:44Number 7. The Piano Scene. Pretty Woman
03:47I was getting lonely upstairs all by myself.
03:56Gentlemen, would you mind leaving us, please?
03:59This classic 90s rom-com wasn't always so pretty behind the scenes. The steamier scene,
04:04shared by Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, happens in semi-darkness on a piano. Roberts,
04:09who was relatively new to acting, confessed that scenes like this caused her intense anxiety.
04:15I'd never done this kind of stuff before, so,
04:17and I was really nervous. You know, I get hives. They say, kiss, and I get a hive.
04:22Luckily, the crew was so supportive that it made these moments way more comfortable than
04:26they could have been. Still, doing a movie with so many romantic sequences
04:30can't be easy when you're breaking out in hives from all the stress.
04:34Where are you going?
04:35I want my money. I want to get out of here.
04:37Number 6. A Lovely Night. La La Land
04:40Doing a musical number can be complicated enough. Not only is there choreography to nail,
04:44but it has to be lit and shot from all the right angles to capture every movement.
04:50Director Damien Chazelle and his stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling
04:54were trying to complete this iconic sequence on hard mode.
04:58What a waste of a lovely night.
05:03A Lovely Night is a six-minute song and dance sequence played against the backdrop of Los
05:08Angeles at sunset. Well, the thing about sunset is that it doesn't last long,
05:13and Stone and Gosling weren't exactly trained dancers.
05:16And maybe this appeals to someone not in heels or to any girl who feels there's some chance for romance.
05:30They got it done, but the degree of difficulty made it stressful.
05:34Gosling says the scene still haunts him, albeit for a very specific and hilarious reason.
05:39And I thought it'd be cool to have come to an end like that.
05:42Even though everyone told me it wasn't cool, I was sure that that was cooler than that.
05:46And now when I look at it, and I have to see it all the time,
05:49you know what would have been cooler than this? That.
05:53Number 5. Lunch Date. His Girl Friday
05:55It might have been a good idea if I had taken a little insurance.
05:58Well, I honestly feel that way. I figure I'm in one business that really helps people.
06:03Howard Hawks' unforgettable screwball comedy required its makers to constantly innovate.
06:08The feature-length sound film was just over a decade old,
06:11and His Girl Friday's famously fast and overlapping dialogue presented unique challenges.
06:17Well, Walter, I think we'd better be running along.
06:19Yes, we'd better be going.
06:20Where are we going?
06:21I'm taking you two to lunch. Didn't you tell him, Hildy?
06:23No, she didn't.
06:24Well, I guess she just wanted to surprise you, Bruce.
06:26A restaurant scene between Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, and Ralph Bellamy
06:30was especially challenging because they could not yet record sounds on different tracks.
06:35Also, Grant and Russell were constantly one-upping each other with ad-libs,
06:39which made it harder for the crew to anticipate where they'd be needed.
06:43The scene took four days to film, double the time anticipated,
06:47but the result crackles with wit and energy.
06:50Well, I admit I wasn't much of a husband, but you can always count on me, Hildy.
06:54I don't think she'll need you very much, Mr. Burns. I aim to do most of the protecting myself.
06:58Number 4. Meeting at the Empire State Building. Sleepless in Seattle
07:02Are you Annie?
07:06Yes.
07:10You're Annie?
07:11Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are a classic rom-com pairing in this 1993 Nora Ephron film.
07:16In Sleepless in Seattle, the famed New York landmark becomes the site of the climactic meeting
07:22between a widower and a reporter. But getting permission to film at the Empire State Building
07:26proved to be incredibly difficult. Ephron even had to hound the publicist of the building's owner,
07:32Leona Helmsley, who was in jail for tax evasion at the time.
07:36There's someone I was supposed to meet. He's probably not there,
07:39but if I don't at least look, I'll always wonder about it.
07:42Though she was successful, the production only had access to the building for six hours,
07:47but Ephron and her crew made it happen.
07:50We better go.
07:59Shall we?
08:00Number 3. Wesley vs. Inigo Montoya. The Princess Bride
08:05You are wonderful.
08:06Thank you. I've worked hard to become so.
08:08When it came time for actors Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin to do their character's big
08:13fight scene, the screenplay was a bit daunting. It just described it as the best sword fight of
08:19all time. What ended up on screen looked effortless. In reality, it took weeks of preparation.
08:25You must expect me to attack with capo ferro.
08:27Naturally, but I find that tipple cancels out capo ferro. Don't you?
08:32Unless the enemy has a study, he's a gripper.
08:37Which I have.
08:37The actors trained for almost a month before the actual sequence was filmed. They were in good
08:42hands, as they were trained by the same duo who worked on the lightsaber duels in the original
08:47Star Wars trilogy. The actors performed it all, with the exception of a few somersaults,
08:52and every moment was choreographed. It's a good thing, too,
08:55as any small slip or mistake could result in a pretty bad injury.
08:59We trained every day, even while we were shooting, between takes. Either Bob or Peter were off camera
09:08with a whole bunch of swords in their hands, and the minute the, that Rob yelled cut,
09:12they would grab us.
09:13Number two, Good Morning, Singing in the Rain
09:16For how easy its styles made it look,
09:19shooting Singing in the Rain sounds like a nightmare from start to finish.
09:23Gene Kelly was severely ill when he performed the title song.
09:27Donald O'Connor had to rest in the hospital for several days after shooting Make Him Laugh,
09:32but Debbie Reynolds may have had the worst experience.
09:35I can't learn this anymore. I'm banging on the floor. You know, this is too hard.
09:41So, sobbing away. I was 17.
09:44Kelly was especially hard on her, as she was not as experienced as a dancer,
09:48although she could have fooled us.
09:50But came the dawn, the show goes on, and I don't wanna say good night.
09:54Don't say good morning!
09:56Good morning!
09:57Filming the unforgettable Good Morning number reportedly took around 15 hours. By the end,
10:02Reynolds' feet were bloody, and she had to be carried off set. She later likened the
10:08experience of making the movie to the difficulty of giving birth.
10:11Sweating, turning red in the face. And after about an hour, he looked over and he said,
10:16that's enough. You see how hard it is? It never gets easier. This is the way it is. You go learn
10:21it.
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10:38Number 1. Car Chase
10:40What's Up, Doc?
10:41Oh, they're gaining on us.
10:42I think there's a good road right down there.
10:45OK.
10:46Harkening back to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, Peter Bogdanovich's
10:52What's Up, Doc? boasts a great cast and increasingly zany comic set pieces. At the
10:58climax, Ryan O'Neill and Barbara Streisand end up in a chase through the sloped streets
11:03of San Francisco.
11:04What are you doing? This is a one-way street.
11:06We're only going one way.
11:08Each moment seeks to up the ante, eventually landing all of the characters and their cars
11:13in the San Francisco Bay. The production earned the ire of the city, as it didn't have permission
11:18to film a car going down the steps at Ulta Plaza Park, let alone an entire line of cars.
11:24The steps sustained quite a bit of damage as a result. Despite that, the whole scene
11:29still remains a sensational testament to timing and stunt coordination.
11:34Now what?
11:36I knew you'd say that.
11:37What behind-the-scenes story will stick with you? Tell us in the comments.
11:41Please understand, I hold you in the highest respect.
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