- 5 minutes ago
From petty squabbles to "confusingly large" 'bits'.
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00:00The business of filmmaking is complicated and challenging at the best of times,
00:03yet at others it's potentially dangerous and even degrading.
00:06This is precisely why stunt and body doubles exist,
00:10to prevent actors from suffering the risk of serious injury
00:13or feeling pressured to expose more of their skin than they'd like.
00:17But beyond the obvious reasons,
00:18actors will sometimes employ the services of a double for highly unexpected reasons,
00:23be it to perform a speciality task they're unable to do,
00:26to give the director a slightly different take of a scene,
00:29or even to boost their own ego.
00:31In the case of these actors,
00:33each use a double for a rather peculiar or surprising reason.
00:36It wasn't always their fault,
00:38and in many cases the absurdity makes a wacky amount of sense,
00:41but each nevertheless serves as a testament to the amount of unseen work
00:45that goes into even the simplest movie scene.
00:49So with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:51here with actors who needed doubles for ridiculous reasons.
00:55Wesley Snipes would only shoot close-ups and dialogue,
00:58Blade Trinity.
00:59It's fair to say that the troubled production of Blade Trinity
01:02is much more interesting than the film itself,
01:04as demonstrated by a hilarious report from Patton Oswalt
01:07about Wesley Snipes' disruptive behaviour on the set of the threequel.
01:12Snipes bristled with writer-director David S. Goyer throughout shooting,
01:15to the extent that the two would ultimately only communicate through post-it notes.
01:20Plus, unless he was required to be on set to shoot a close-up or a dialogue scene,
01:24the actor spent most of his time confined to his trailer smoking weed.
01:28This resulted in his stunt double reportedly performing a larger-than-expected volume of the
01:33actor's shots, even those which weren't action-centric or necessitated a stunt double.
01:38This was corroborated by a journalist who visited the film's set, adding,
01:42Not only was he not prepared to help his fellow actors during their close-ups,
01:47but if the shot involved anything less than a front-on close-up,
01:51he called for a stand-in to do the acting for him.
01:54It means Wesley Snipes' stand-in was in more of Blade Trinity than Snipes himself was.
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02:15I'd make that deal. Damn good deal.
02:17Roger Moore thought his running was awkward.
02:20James Bond.
02:21Roger Moore may have been rather long in the tooth by the time he finally decided to quit
02:25the role of James Bond, but did you know that any time he had to ran on-screen across all
02:31seven of his films of his tenure, the scene was in fact carried out by a stunt double.
02:35This wasn't due to any physical inability on Moore's part, but that he thought he looked
02:40awkward when running, and presumably didn't want either himself or the 007 character to look
02:46too silly. After all, Moore's Bond dressing up as a clown and bedding women decades younger
02:51than himself was the utter pinnacle of dignity, right?
02:54Even so, one suspects these days it's a basic requirement that any actor playing Bond can
02:59pull off a badass-looking run.
03:01Jack Black couldn't play the electric guitar properly.
03:05School of Rock.
03:06As an immensely talented actor-musician, Jack Black seemed like a note-perfect choice for
03:11the role of guitar-shredding teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, but there was one minor,
03:16unexpected complication.
03:18Though Black has proven through his work in Tenacious D that he can rock an acoustic guitar
03:22with the rest of them, at the time of the movie's filming, he rarely dabbled with the electric
03:27guitar, and therefore had to actually learn how to play the instrument to a basic level.
03:32However, Black only performs a small amount of the playing himself, and for the solos,
03:36a double was drafted into play.
03:38Given it's no secret that Kyle Gass is the more accomplished guitar player in Tenacious D,
03:43it actually does make a bit of sense.
03:45Granted, it's reasonable to assume that Black would know enough about music to probably fake
03:50the solo to a decent standard, but apparently that wasn't the case.
03:54Willem Dafoe's penis was too big.
03:56Antichrist.
03:57It's not terribly surprising that Willem Dafoe had a stunt penis for his role in Lars von Trier's
04:03searing psychological horror film Antichrist, given the amount of graphic male nudity on display
04:08throughout.
04:09However, the real reason certainly is a shock.
04:12The controversial filmmaker, of all people, thought that Dafoe had a, quote,
04:16enormous that was too big.
04:18As for quite what qualified Dafoe's member as being oversized for a film like Antichrist,
04:23von Trier said, quote,
04:25Everybody got very confused when they saw it.
04:28And if on the off chance you are curious about quite what a confusingly large penis looks like,
04:34it doesn't take much to find footage of a younger Dafoe sharing his impressive endowment
04:39with the world.
04:39And if that ain't a self-esteem boost for an actor, what is?
04:42Natalie Portman didn't want to dive into cold water, Your Highness.
04:46Pretty much the only reason anyone remembers the 2010 stoner comedy Your Highness is for
04:51the sequence in which Natalie Portman's heroine strips down to a metal thong and takes a dip
04:56in the nearby lake.
04:58And while you'd be forgiven for assuming that Portman had a stunt double for the strip scene
05:02itself, that's actually not the case.
05:04Portman did get down to her undergarments herself.
05:07But when it came to getting wet, she deferred to a body double because the water was, quote,
05:12Really, really cold.
05:14Coming mere months after the Black Swan controversy, where Portman's dance double claimed the Oscar
05:19winning actress did much less of the work than the studio claimed, this story didn't help
05:23the actress's reputation for precociousness.
05:26Still, it all blew over pretty quickly and, um, Your Highness faded fast into obscurity.
05:31Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack mid-production, Apocalypse Now.
05:36To be clear, there's nothing funny or ridiculous about a heart attack.
05:39But the production's response to dealing with a 36-year-old Martin Sheen's mid-shooting
05:44coronary sure was absurd.
05:46The shoot was a famously hellish one.
05:48And when Sheen suffered a heart attack on location in the Philippines, even the actor himself
05:53worried about the costs it would incur, a production already massively over budget.
05:58Rather than panic investors and cause the plug to be pulled, Sheen claimed he was suffering
06:02from heat stroke and insisted that the production shoot around him.
06:06During the six weeks he spent recuperating, his brother played a body double for any shots
06:11not showing Sheen's face, with the rest being filled in once he returned to set.
06:15Credit where credit's due, though, you'd never know by watching the movie itself, even
06:19if it's flatly insane that production wouldn't shut down after its lead actor almost dropped
06:24dead.
06:25Appropriately balmy for Apocalypse Now, Russell Crowe couldn't convincingly write
06:30mathematic equations, a beautiful mind.
06:33No matter how brilliant an actor might be, there are some innate aspects of certain professions
06:38that are virtually impossible to imitate within just a few weeks or months of research.
06:42Short of pulling a Daniel Day-Lewis caliber feat of method acting, people in that profession
06:48will be able to recognize a faker a million miles away.
06:51And that was the problem faced by Russell Crowe and director Ron Howard while shooting the
06:55best picture-winning drama A Beautiful Mind, where Crowe played legendary real-life mathematician
07:01John Nash.
07:02Because Crowe was unable to convincingly write equations with the natural flow of an actual mathematician,
07:07Howard hired the film's math consultant, Dave Beyer, to also play Crowe's hand double
07:13for scenes which required an equation to be written down.
07:17Hilariously, Beyer even trimmed his nails in order to match Crowe's, unaware that Crowe
07:21had since grown his out to match Nash's.
07:23As a result, Beyer had to wear acrylic fingernails for much of the shoot.
07:27Dakota Johnson had butt tattoos.
07:30Fifty Shades of Grey
07:31Given how much of a fuss was made about the amount of graphic sex in the Fifty Shades franchise,
07:37you'd be surprised how much of the rutting was actually carried out by body doubles.
07:41And while one could perhaps understand that lead actress Dakota Johnson wanted to preserve
07:45some of her modesty during the more in-your-face sex scenes, that's actually not the reason
07:50she had a butt double throughout the erotic thriller trilogy.
07:54Because Johnson had tattoos on her bottom, and these were deemed not to suit the nature of
07:59her mousy, demure protagonist Anastasia Steele, the call was made to have a non-tattooed butt
08:04double perform any scenes that glimpsed the character's bum.
08:08The film's cinematographer said,
08:09We did have a butt double for Dakota, and I had the pleasure of casting a non-tattooed
08:14bottom.
08:15As for Johnson herself, she called her tattoos annoying due to the sheer amount of times she
08:19has to have them covered up for roles.
08:21Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson couldn't stand each other, the fate of the Furious.
08:26The real-life beef between the Fast and the Furious stars Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson
08:30is no secret, with each not-so-subtly calling the other out on social media, and fans noting
08:36their total lack of direct interactions in 2017's The Fate of the Furious.
08:41It subsequently emerged that this was completely intentional, to effectively eliminate their
08:46time physically on set with one another.
08:48Throughout the film, there are many obvious tells.
08:51For instance, one interaction conspicuously takes place over the phone, and was likely
08:55recorded separately.
08:57Elsewhere, the action sequences naturally utilise stunt drivers, again ensuring Diesel
09:02and Johnson didn't need to be in the same vicinity.
09:05And in other scenes, one of the characters is generally facing away from the camera, due
09:10to one side of the interaction being carried out by a double.
09:13Despite the mutual benefit of both men getting along and making the best movie they could,
09:17complete with, you know, actual physical interactions between them, ego seemed to win out.
09:23This was rather hilariously reflected by the film's poster, which also depicted the two
09:27facing away from one another.
09:29Gert Frobe didn't know how to play golf.
09:32Goldfinger.
09:32Gert Frobe gave arguably the most iconic and unforgettable villain performance of the entire
09:38Bond franchise as Oric Goldfinger.
09:41Yet despite his fantastic screen presence, the actor required a double for one major aspect
09:45of his character.
09:47For the memorable golf contest between Goldfinger and Bond, he didn't know how to play golf,
09:52and so for any shot where the actor's face isn't visible, a golf-savvy double is actually
09:57playing the part.
09:58It does seem a bit daft, because ultimately, how hard can it be to make an actor look good
10:02at golf.
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