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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 over-eager 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 Josh from
00:26PopCulture.com and these are 10 tiny details actors requested for movies.
00:31Number 10. Ben Affleck requested not to wear a Yankees baseball cap in Gone Girl.
00:35As much as David Fincher might be an exacting director who often demands dozens of takes from
00:40his actors, he 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 die-hard fan of
00:56the Boston 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,
01:07I said, David, I love you. I would do anything for you, but I will not wear a Yankees hat.
01:12I just can't. I can't wear it because it's going to become a thing, David. I will never hear the
01:17end of it. I can't do it. And I couldn't put it on my head, end quote.
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 been
01:29joking on that. Either way, Affleck got what he wanted, and to be fair, he was kind of right as
01:34well. With the amount of stick that he gets in the press, he wouldn't have heard the end of this
01:38film. Number nine, 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. Anderson.
01:55With the Doctor being an Australian, the character wore a patch on his uniform bearing the country's
02:01flag, though Neill asked that the flag receive a futuristic alteration, replacing the Union Jack in
02:07the top left corner with that of an Aboriginal flag. Neill felt that this was the way that the
02:11flag should look by the year 2047, renouncing the country's colonial ties while paying tribute
02:17to those who first made Australia their home. Now we'll have to wait to see whether or not
02:21Neill's look towards the future comes to fruition, but it sure is a neat character flourish either way.
02:26Number eight, Bryce Dallas Howard requested high heels for just one scene, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom.
02:32No matter what you thought of the first Jurassic World, you'll likely remember
02:35all the controversy surrounding the footwear choice of Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire,
02:40who spends the movie fleeing from bloodthirsty dinosaurs in freaking high heels. Like fair news,
02:46that's pretty badass, you know? Still, it was a decision which received plenty of flack from fans,
02:51and so for the sequel Fallen Kingdom, the decision was made to show Claire changing her heels into some
02:57more practical boots early on. But one to never give in, Howard insisted that the film
03:01featured just a single scene with Claire back in the heels, logically opting for the early scene
03:06in which Claire is shown arriving at her office. Of the moment, Howard said, quote,
03:11in 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.
03:25Number seven, Robert De Niro refused to use money on camera unless it was real. Goodfellas.
03:30Robert De Niro has a reputation of being a bit of a grump on movie sets,
03:34but this one specific demand he made while making Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is a prime example of
03:39an actor just being a little bit difficult. Playing a veteran gangster, he and his fellow
03:44cast members handled plenty of cash across the movie, living up to their explosive lifestyle,
03:48pulling heists, and of course, tipping doormen. However, De Niro decided that the prop cash used
03:53in the movie just wasn't for him. It was too fake, so he insisted on using real money in every
03:58scene he
03:59handled cash in. Instead of driving down to the bank and getting some of his own out for the scenes,
04:03though, you know, considering this is very much a him problem as the use of real cash on sets isn't
04:08usually allowed, it was the prop master who had to give him five thousand real dollars for him to
04:14carry around in his scenes. Telling the story to GQ, he said, quote,
04:18The only guy who uses real money in the movie is De Niro. He had like five thousand dollars cash
04:24in
04:24his pocket. I went to the bank and took out a couple thousand dollars of my own, but you had
04:29to keep track of it. Like the scene in the casino, he's throwing fifty dollar and twenty dollar bills
04:33around, and as soon as they cut, we're all trying to get them back like everyone frees.
04:386. Matt Damon requested his cowboy hat to have a belt buckle spelling the letter B. True Grit.
04:44Not one to be outdone by his pal Ben Affleck, Matt Damon also made a baseball-related wardrobe
04:49request on the set of the Coen brothers' western remake, True Grit. Damon, who played a Texas Ranger
04:54in the film, made 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. Given that the Red Sox's
05:04baseball cap bears the same letter B prominently on the front, it's a pretty direct tribute,
05:09albeit 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,
05:23I bet he made ol' Ben proud.
05:245. 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, Martin Brewery, wears his police
05:34badge on the wrong side of his uniform, this is actually no mistake at all. Indeed, police in reality
05:39traditionally wear the shield on their left side, intended to cover their heart, but Brody
05:44instead wore his on the right side of his shirt. In an interview with Empire Magazine, the film's
05:49co-writer confirmed that this switcheroo was not a mistake, but instead the actual suggestion of
05:54star Roy Scheider himself. He said, quote,
05:56All cops wear their badge on the left. Roy insisted on it, so I asked him,
06:01why are you doing that? He said, I want the audience to think this guy is complicated.
06:05This subconsciously throws the audience off balance. It was great to have an audience's
06:10interest piqued by this little wardrobe tweak. I always thought that was an amazing choice,
06:14end quote. Given that Brody is effectively the film's single example of forward-thinking
06:18authority, it does make sense that he isn't cut from quite the same button-down cloth as his fellow
06:23servicemen, whether you noticed it or not. Number four, Annika Noni Rose requested Princess Tiana
06:29be left-handed like herself, The Princess and the Frog. The Princess and the Frog is surely one of
06:33the most underappreciated films in Disney's back catalogue, a vibrant and refreshingly diverse spin
06:39on the typical Disney princess formula. Singer-actress Annika Noni Rose provided a voice for teenage
06:44protagonist Tiana, and some fans eventually noticed that Tiana is one of only two Disney princesses,
06:49the other being Mulan, to be left-handed. And this was actually a request from none other than
06:53Rose herself, who being left-handed felt that translating her own left-handedness into the
06:58character would represent her all the more accurately on screen. Ultimately the anime is
07:03not only agreed but also included Annika's own facial dimples in the final design as well.
07:08Number three, Henry Cavill requested to keep his hairy chest, Man of Steel.
07:12Of the myriad divisive things out Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, many Superman fans took umbrage with the
07:18superhero showing off a distinctly hairy chest during the oil rig rescue sequence. This though
07:24was actually a request from Henry Cavill himself, who, when asked to shave his chiseled bod, fired
07:29back with a comic reference to state his case for keeping Supes' hairy chest. He said, quote,
07:35It's something that I wanted because in the comic book The Death of Superman there's this bit where his
07:40costume's ripped and he's making the ultimate sacrifice and he's got his hairy chest and I was like,
07:45okay, why is the perception that because he's muscly he must have no body hair? And I thought,
07:50why can't we just do that, like in the comic books? So we did. So there, haters be damned.
07:55It ensured that Cavill's stocky beefcake Superman had a look quite unlike any other live-action
08:00iteration of the DC icon. Number two, Samuel L. Jackson requested a purple lightsaber for Star
08:06Wars prequels. Probably the most unique and memorable aspect of Mace Windu as a character is that he
08:12commands a purple lightsaber, a flourish which Samuel L. Jackson himself suggested to George Lucas.
08:17In addition to Jackson's clear fondness for purple in real life, given how often it figures into the
08:22wardrobes of his movie characters, he also wanted to make sure that he stood out in the movie's action
08:27scenes amid a sea of robed warriors. And as the saying goes, shy Ben's getting out, and though Lucas
08:33was initially a bit hesitant, he eventually acquiesced and allowed Jackson to wield a purple lightsaber
08:38during reshoots. While the trilogy sadly never quite capitalized on Jackson's sheer badassery,
08:44the purple saber sure was a neat look for the character, and true to Jackson's hopes,
08:48did help Mace Windu stand out from his Jedi brethren. Number one, Steve McQueen requested 12
08:53extra lines of dialogue to match Paul Newman, The Towering Inferno. And finally, this request wasn't
08:59some quirky wardrobe ask, but a minor tweak related to dialogue allocation of all things. 1974's Oscar
09:05winning disaster film, The Towering Inferno, boasted a terrific ensemble cast, led by the inimitable
09:11pairing of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. However, after signing on, McQueen had a few requests to
09:16ensure that he received 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 both
09:36himself and Newman, after which he asked the screenwriter to pen an extra 12 lines of dialogue
09:41for himself, which he duly did. Ego, jostling aside, everything clearly worked out for the best
09:46here given the film's enormous critical and commercial success.
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