10 Tiny Details Actors Requested For Movies
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00:00It's no secret that A-list actors can get a little bit overeager with their on-set requests.
00:04Some demand millions of dollars in expenses, others a very specific selection of on-set cuisine,
00:10but there are some actors who have had some very weirdly specific demands before agreeing to do
00:16their work. Now, none of these details drastically altered their respective movie, plot or character
00:21in any major way, but they clearly meant something to the actor all the same. I'm
00:25Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 Tiny Details Actors Requested For Movies.
00:30Number 10. Ben Affleck requested not to wear a Yankees baseball cap in Gone Girl. As much
00:36as David Fincher might be an exacting director who often demands dozens of takes from his actors,
00:41he came into conflict with Ben Affleck while shooting Gone Girl for a wholly more petty
00:46reason. The scene in question called for Affleck's character to wear a New York Yankees hat while
00:51attempting to maintain a low profile at an airport. Affleck, though a diehard fan of the
00:56Boston Red Sox, a team which has a historic rivalry with the Yankees, just flat out refused,
01:02requesting that he wear any other hat instead. Of the incident, Affleck commented,
01:21According to Fincher on the movie's home video commentary, production was shut down for four
01:25days while he and Affleck hashed out the disagreement, though you might have just
01:29been joking on that. Either way, Affleck got what he wanted, and to be fair, he was kinda right as
01:34well. With the amount of stick he gets in the press, he wouldn't have heard the end of this
01:38from the tabloids. Number 9. Sam Neill requested an Aboriginal Australian flag on his uniform,
01:44Event Horizon. For his role as Dr. William Weir in cult sci-fi horror film Event Horizon,
01:49Sam Neill made a small yet frankly ingenious costume recommendation to director Paul W.S.
01:55Anderson. With the Doctor being an Australian, the character wore a patch on his uniform bearing the
02:00country's flag, though Neill asked that the flag receive a futuristic alteration, replacing the
02:06Union Jack in the top left corner with that of an Aboriginal flag. Neill felt that this was the way
02:11that the flag should look by the year 2047, renouncing the country's colonial ties while
02:16paying tribute to those who first made Australia their home. Now we'll have to wait to see whether
02:21or not Neill's look towards the future comes to fruition, but it sure is a neat character
02:25flourish either way. Number 8. Bryce Dallas Howard requested high heels for just one scene,
02:31Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. No matter what you thought of the first Jurassic World,
02:34you'll likely remember all the controversy surrounding the footwear choice of Bryce
02:39Dallas Howard's Claire, who spends the movie fleeing from bloodthirsty dinosaurs in freaking
02:44high heels. Fair news, that's pretty badass, y'know? Still, it was a decision which received
02:50plenty of flack from fans, and so for the sequel, Fallen Kingdom, the decision was made to show
02:55Claire changing her heels into some more practical boots early on. But one to never give in, Howard
03:00insisted that the film feature just a single scene with Claire back in the heels, logically opting for
03:05the early scene in which Claire is shown arriving at her office. Of the moment, Howard said quote,
03:10In the first scene, I'm wearing high heels, and it was written like Claire's wearing sneakers,
03:15like specifically Claire's wearing sneakers. And I just circled that when I was reading it,
03:21and I was like, no no no, it's an office Claire would wear heels, end quote. Number 7. Robert
03:26De Niro refused to use money on camera unless it was real, Goodfellas. Robert De Niro has a
03:31reputation of being a bit of a grump on movie sets, but this one specific demand he made while
03:36making Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is a prime example of an actor just being a bit difficult.
03:42Playing a veteran gangster, he and his fellow cast members handled plenty of cash across the movie,
03:47living up to their explosive lifestyle, pulling heists, and of course, tipping doormen. However,
03:51De Niro decided that the prop cash used in the movie just wasn't for him. It was too fake,
03:56so he insisted on using real money in every scene he handled cash in. Instead of driving down to the
04:01bank and getting some of his own out for the scenes though, you know, considering this is
04:05very much a him problem as the use of real cash on sets isn't usually allowed, it was the prop
04:10master who had to give him 5,000 real dollars for him to carry around in his scenes. Telling the
04:17story to GQ, he said quote, The only guy who uses real money in the movie is De Niro. He had like
04:23$5,000 cash in his pocket. I went to the bank and took out a couple thousand dollars of my own,
04:28but you had to keep track of it. Like the scene in the casino, he's throwing $50 and $20 bills around,
04:34and as soon as they cut, we're all trying to get them back like everyone frees.
04:38Number 6. Matt Damon requested his cowboy hat to have a belt buckle
04:42spelling the letter B. True grit. Not one to be outdone by his pal Ben Affleck,
04:46Matt Damon also made a baseball-related wardrobe request on the set of the Coen
04:50Brothers' western remake, True Grit. Damon, who played a Texas Ranger in the film,
04:55made arrangements for the belt buckle on his cowboy hat to resemble the letter B,
05:00in tribute to his favourite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox.
05:03Given that the Red Sox's baseball cap bears the same letter B prominently on the front,
05:07it's a pretty direct tribute, albeit ingeniously slipped into such a card-carrying period movie.
05:13Damon reportedly tries to include references to the Red Sox in as many of his movies as possible,
05:18but he'll struggle to top this level of inspired sneakery. At the very least, I bet he made old
05:24Ben proud. Number 5. Roy Scheider requested to wear his police badge on his left. Jaws.
05:29Though it's often cited as a goof that Jaws' police chief protagonist,
05:32Martin Brody, wears his police badge on the wrong side of his uniform,
05:36this is actually no mistake at all. Indeed, police in reality traditionally wear the shield
05:40on their left side, intended to cover their heart, but Brody instead wore his on the right
05:45side of his shirt. In an interview with Empire Magazine, the film's co-writer confirmed that
05:50this switcheroo was not a mistake, but instead the actual suggestion of star Roy Scheider himself.
05:56He said, quote,
05:57All cops wear their badge on the left. Roy insisted on it, so I asked him,
06:01Why are you doing that? He said,
06:03I want the audience to think this guy is complicated. This subconsciously throws
06:07the audience off balance. It was great to have an audience's interest piqued by this
06:11little wardrobe tweak. I always thought that was an amazing choice. End quote.
06:15Given that Brody is effectively the film's single example of forward-thinking authority,
06:19it does make sense that he isn't cut from quite the same button-down cloth
06:23as his fellow servicemen, whether you noticed it or not.
06:26Number four, Anika Noni Rose requested Princess Tiana be left-handed like herself,
06:31The Princess and the Frog. The Princess and the Frog is surely one of the most underappreciated
06:35films in Disney's back catalogue, a vibrant and refreshingly diverse spin on the typical
06:39Disney princess formula. Singer-actress Anika Noni Rose provided the voice for
06:43teenage protagonist Tiana, and some fans eventually noticed that Tiana is one of
06:47only two Disney princesses, the other being Mulan, to be left-handed. And this was actually
06:52a request from none other than Rose herself, who being left-handed felt that translating
06:56her own left-handedness into the character would represent her all the more accurately on screen.
07:01Ultimately, the anime is not only agreed, but also included Anika's own facial dimples in
07:06the final design as well. Number three, Henry Cavill requested to keep his hairy chest,
07:11Man of Steel. Of the myriad divisive things on Zack Snyder's Man of Steel,
07:16many Superman fans took umbrage with the superhero showing off a distinctly hairy chest
07:21during the oil rig rescue sequence. This though was actually a request from Henry Cavill himself,
07:26who when asked to shave his chiseled bod, fired back with a comic reference to state his case
07:32for keeping Supes' hairy chest. He said, quote,
07:35It's something that I wanted because in the comic book The Death of Superman,
07:39there's this bit where his costume's ripped and he's making the ultimate sacrifice and he's got
07:44his hairy chest and I was like, okay, why is the perception that because he's muscly he must have
07:48no body hair? And I thought, why can't we just do that like in the comic books? So we did.
07:54So there, haters be damned. It ensured that Cavill's stocky beefcake Superman
07:58had to look quite unlike any other live action iteration of the DC icon.
08:02Number two, Samuel L. Jackson requested a purple lightsaber for Star Wars prequels.
08:07Probably the most unique and memorable aspect of Mace Windu as a character is that he commands
08:12a purple lightsaber. It flourished which Samuel L. Jackson himself suggested to George Lucas.
08:17In addition to Jackson's clear fondness for purple in real life,
08:20given how often it figures into the wardrobes of his movie characters,
08:24he also wanted to make sure that he stood out in the movie's action scenes amid a sea
08:28of robed warriors. And as the saying goes, shy bands getting out.
08:32And though Lucas was initially a bit hesitant, he eventually acquiesced and allowed Jackson
08:37to wield a purple lightsaber during reshoots, while the trilogy sadly never quite capitalized
08:41on Jackson's sheer badassery. The purple saber sure was a neat look for the character and true
08:47to Jackson's hopes, did help Mace Windu stand out from his Jedi brethren.
08:51Number one, Steve McQueen requested 12 extra lines of dialogue to match Paul Newman,
08:56The Towering Inferno. And finally, this request wasn't some quirky wardrobe ask,
09:00but a minor tweak related to dialogue allocation of all things. 1974's Oscar winning disaster film,
09:06The Towering Inferno, boasted a terrific ensemble cast, led by the inimitable pairing of Paul Newman
09:12and Steve McQueen. However, after signing on, McQueen had a few requests to ensure that he
09:17received equal treatment compared to co-star Newman. In addition to seeking and receiving
09:21the same salary, McQueen also asked that they receive equally prominent billing on the movie's
09:26posters and better still, requested that his lines of dialogue numbered exactly the same as Newman.
09:31And so, this led to McQueen reportedly reading the movie's script and counting the lines for
09:36both himself and Newman, after which he asked the screenwriter to pen an extra 12 lines of
09:40dialogue for himself, which he duly did. Ego jostling aside, everything clearly worked out
09:45for the best here, given the film's enormous critical and commercial success.