Continued from last week
Actors often go to great extremes for a role, but the following actors’ crazy on-set behavior gives new meaning to the term ‘too far.’From on-set meltdowns to physical altercations, you won’t believe some of the lines they crossed.
Dwayne Johnson
What’s a surefire way to tick people off in Hollywood? Air out your dirty laundry on social media. That’s exactly what Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson did in August 2016 when he posted a message to Facebook calling out some of his male castmates on the latest movie in the Fast and the Furious series, Fast 8. “Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t,” he wrote, without naming names. “The ones that don’t are too chickens—- to do anything about it anyway … When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling—you’re right.”
TMZ later alleged that Johnson was directly referencing Vin Diesel, with whom Johnson was rumored to clash over Diesel’s producing decisions, among other things. TMZ also claimed that many of Johnson’s male costars felt he was “out of line” for posting the message. Whatever the case, their feud appears to have died down—at least according to this Facebook Live video from Diesel, anyway—leading some to wonder if the feud was really just a setup. Either way, for the amount of cash he’s making for Fast 8, Johnson could probably stand to bite a few bullets.
Dustin Hoffman
The allegedly awful way in which Dustin Hoffman treated co-star Meryl Streep on the set of Kramer vs. Kramer was well documented in the 2016 biography Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep. According to excerpts obtained by Vanity Fair, Hoffman allegedly tortured Streep during the filming of the movie by slapping her just before a scene, bringing up the death of her former boyfriend, John Cazale, and improvising a scene by smashing a glass against a wall, leaving shards of it in her hair.
Although she didn’t participate in the biography, Streep did imply that shooting Kramer vs. Kramer with Hoffman wasn’t exactly the best of times in a 2011 interview with CBS News. “Dustin shocked me,” Streep said, “Because we were shooting a scene … My wine glass was sitting there and he just with his hand brushed it so that it whizzed by my nose and broke on the wall and little pieces of glass [shattered].
“And then, in another scene, he slapped me,” she continued. “When I see the movie, I see the imprint of his hand—not in the take that he used—but I still see the hand from the previous take. So, that was like a trial by fire. I thought, ‘Eww… Maybe this is the Method [acting] or something.’ But I think he’s very, very gifted. It wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had on a film.” Pissing off Meryl Streep? Oh, Dustin. That’s a big no-no.
George Clooney
It’s hard to hear about an actor punching a director without immediately thinking about how actors are super prima donna crybabies. Even George Clooney. You hear he hit his director and you go, “Aw, man, I liked him.” It’s your gut reaction! Because we’ve all heard of actors going way too far on set for ridiculous reasons. In this case, though, we actually think the actor was in the right. See, David O. Russell was the director of Three Kings, and he doesn’t have the best reputation. This is the movie where he earned that reputation. He attacked crew members, humiliated them, screamed at them, did just the worst things he could. Clooney stepped in because, well, he’s the man. “You can’t shove, push, or humiliate people,” Clooney reportedly told him, and when Russell responded by trying to attack him, he allegedly attacked back. The movie somehow continued to get made despite the director and star trading blows. It’s not over either. Years later, Clooney said that he would still punch Russell if he saw him. Because Clooney is the man.