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Everyone has a bad day at work, people lose their tempers, these are normal things that happen in workplaces across the globe, including movie and TV sets. Stories abound on the internet about stars throwing temper tantrums or falling into depressed episodes while working on movies.
There have been fist fights, emotional abuse, and bizarre behavior during the making of several movies. Marlon Brando was so out of his mind during one movie he put an ice bucket on his head during a scene and refused to take it off. The torture Shelley Duvall suffered at the helm of Stanley Kubrick is the stuff of Hollywood legend. Sometimes the meltdowns are justified, and other times stars are proof that being a celebrity can puff up your ego.
11 Sean Connery
When a movie star hates a film so much that he retires, you know it has to be bad. Connery was so offended by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that he quit the industry, and his feud with the film’s director Stephen Norrington was a major cause. Connery exploded when the director canceled a whole day of shooting over one malfunctioning prop.
Connery also wanted to help edit the film’s final cut, which Norrington denied. Maybe if he had let him the movie wouldn’t have turned into one of the most widely panned comic book movies ever made. Connery was not the only one who hated the film, comic writer Alan Moore, the creator of The League, hated it too. But to be fair, Moore hates all of the Hollywood adaptations of his work.
10 Shelly Duvall
Stanley Kubrick was notoriously hard on his actors, sometimes making them do hundreds of takes for what would normally be the simplest things to shoot. The repetition and his harsh directing style were draining to actress Shelly Duvall, but Kubrick was not just hard on Duvall, he was practically abusive. He forced Duvall to cry for hours, bickered with her constantly, and berated her acting style. Duvall was so distraught that she began to lose weight (she was already famously thin) and her hair began to fall out. Duvall said the experience was, “almost unbearable.” That said, her portrayal of Wendy is one of her best performances, but was the abuse she endured worth it?
9 Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer must have been going through something in the mid-1990s because reports abound about his terrible on-set attitude while filming Red Planet and Batman Forever. But his behavior while shooting The Island of Dr. Moreau was unconscionable. Infuriated that he was not given the lead in the film or that his schedule was accommodated for his role in the Batman movie, Kilmer took it out on the already struggling production. He then doubled down with diva-like demands, refused to show up on time for shoots, and allegedly burned crew members with cigarettes. Amazingly, Kilmer’s behavior was not the worst part of the awful film’s production.
8 Marlon Brando
Kilmer might have been a jerk during the Dr. Moreau shoot, but Brando practically went insane. Distraught with grief over the recent death of his child, Brando took his eccentric behavior to a new level. Brando, who played Moreau, refused to learn his lines, pestered the director for more rewrites, attempted to ad-lib at inappropriate times, demanded that one of the world’s smallest men be the confidant of his character (yes really) and then there is the notorious ice bucket scene in the movie.
At one point, Brando just randomly put a champagne ice bucket on his head like a hat and refused to take it off. Desperate to finish the movie, the director just let him wear it, and that scene actually made it into the final cut of the movie. Yet, somehow, Kilmer and Brando’s behavior were not the most bizarre thing to happen during this shoot. The director had the studio cursed by a professional wizard, who later gave himself radiation poisoning, and after one director was fired he put on one of the animal costumes and snuck onto the set, and made it into the movie.
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7 Wesley Snipes
Patton Oswalt went into detail in an interview with Pete Holmes about what it was like to work with Snipes on the film Blade Trinity, which is widely considered to be the worst Blade film. According to Patton, Snipes was out of his mind the entire shoot. His dressing room constantly reeked of pot smoke, Snipes went method and refused to drop character between shoots, and he feuded with the film’s director, David S. Goyer. Snipes would also not show up for many of his scenes, forcing the already plighted director to use stand-ins and body doubles. Also, Snipes only communicated with the cast and crew via Post-It notes. It’s no surprise the movie was so bad if this is what Goyer had to work with.
6 Lucy Liu (Allegedly)
The actress did not get along with her Charlie’s Angels co-star Bill Murray and had an intense verbal brawl with the comedy legend. Allegedly, Murray was constantly prodding Liu, bullying her and telling her that she couldn’t act. Eventually, if the rumors are to be believed, Liu snapped and attacked Murray while screaming at him. Murray did not return for the sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and was replaced by Bernie Mac. Murray and Liu never worked together again.
5 Dennis Quaid (Sort Of)
In 2015, a video of Quaid losing his temper when an unnamed crew member got into his line of sight went viral. Many were shocked that the actor could be so verbally abusive, however, it was all a hoax. The whole incident was just a very well-planned prank that Quaid planned with the comedy site Funny or Die.
4 Lindsay Lohan
Lohan’s career tanked because of her horrible on-set behavior for multiple films, but The Canyons might have been her worst. She didn’t show up for the first day of shooting, which got her fired, but then was rehired after one of her famous temper tantrums. It only got worse from there, Lohan didn’t learn her lines and delayed shooting for hours at a time when she refused to leave her trailer. The film, as one can imagine, was a huge flop.
3 Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway was reportedly one of the most difficult actresses to work with, especially on the set of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. However, Polanski’s feud with the star did not help to calm things down. Dunaway allegedly began urinating in trash cans during the shoot, which sounds disgusting, but also sounds understandable when you learn that Polanski was denying actors bathroom breaks. Allegedly, it got so bad that Dunaway threw a cup of urine in Polanski’s face. Don’t feel too bad for Polanski, aside from denying actors proper breaks, he fled the country to avoid a prison sentence after he confessed to drugging and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.
2 Tom Cruise
Gee, the guy who jumped up and down on Oprah’s coach during a hyperactive episode in 2005 got too emotional during a film shoot? Shocking! All jokes aside, Cruise did go viral in 2020 when a recording of his outburst while taping Mission Impossible 7 went viral. However, it might be one of the more justified outbursts. Cruise was not happy with the cast and crew’s relaxed approach to COVID-19 restrictions. In Cruise’s defense, this was before the COVID vaccines were available. So when he saw crew members refusing to respect the “6 feet” rule, he snapped, “If I see you do it again, you’re f***ing gone. And if anyone in this crew does it, that’s it — and you too and you too. And you, don’t you ever f***ing do it again.”
1 Christian Bale
Bale went mega-viral in 2009 when a recording of him cussing out the director of photography for his movie Terminator: Salvation. In a moment of poor judgment, the DP, Shane Hulbut, walked into Bale’s line of sight while shooting a scene with Bryce Dallas Howard. In Bale’s defense, walking into an actor’s line of sight is incredibly distracting and a big Hollywood no-no, so it’s understandable that frustrated him. Bale screamed at Hulbut for several minutes, saying they were “f*cking done” working together professionally. This turned out to be all talk, as Bale later apologized and continued to work with Hulbut for the remainder of the film shoot.
