The Most Elaborate And Bizarre On Set Pranks
Actors are not immune to a good, weird prank. They spend long hours on set and need to blow off steam somehow, and sometimes they play tricks on one another. Some are silly, like fart jokes and good-natured ribbing. Others are, well, pretty bizarre. From nudity to grossness to flat-out bodily harm, here are some of the most truly bizarre on set pranks.
Chris Pratt's surprise visit
Chris Pratt had a flash of pervy inspiration during his time on Parks and Recreation. As he told Seth Meyers, he decided to go "snake out" during a scene where his character was supposed to be naked. Pratt was supposed to be wearing a flesh suit, but since It was April Fool's Day, he thought it would be really funny to go full Monty ... without telling anyone. In the spirit of a comedy show, they used Amy Poehler's real reaction, proving that truth is sometimes funnier than fiction.
In an interview with Graham Norton, Pratt said that he didn't feel like Poehler was reacting realistically during rehearsals of the scene, which is what gave him the idea to get completely naked for the shot. Apparently, NBC wasn't thrilled with his prank, and he got a letter from the network reprimanding him for his behavior. Pratt reacted in typical Pratt fashion: he framed the letter and hung it in his office.
Crickets for J-Law
Jennifer Lawrence is terrified of bugs. Since Hollywood's sweetheart has pretty much no filter when it comes to sharing things about herself, that fact was probably common knowledge on the set of Hunger Games: Catching Fire. So, of course, her costar Jeffrey Wright (who plays Beetee) thought it would be funny to prank her with something she was truly afraid of.
As the story goes, Wright gave Lawrence a blue Tiffany's box. Who doesn't love a blue box gift, right? Unfortunately for J-Law, this blue box was full of live crickets. Wright didn't get away without a little bit of karmic punishment, though. He told Chelsea Handler that it was really hard to stuff a bunch of live crickets in a little box, so as a result, he ended up with them all over his hotel room.
Matt Damon's weight gain on The Monuments Men
George Clooney played a particularly involved, mean trick on Matt Damon during the filming of The Monuments Men. Whenever Damon flew back to New York during filming breaks, George Clooney would take all of Damon's clothes to the wardrobe department and have the team there resize the clothes to make them smaller. Damon was trying to lose weight, but he couldn't figure out why his clothes were always too small.
Bill Murray thought it was hilarious. He told Entertainment Tonight that everyone else on set really enjoyed the prank, because Damon would always hit the gym again and work out even harder. Clooney told E! News that the funniest part was how it took Damon forever to figure out what was happening. He just thought he kept getting fatter every time he couldn't button up his pants. Despite the complexity and effort involved in this prank, Damon says that he would never try to prank Clooney back. He doesn't want to "poke the bear."
Fish poisoning for Leo
In The Wolf of Wall Street, there's a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's and Jonah Hill's characters are eating sushi, and in the script, Hill's character is supposed to accept the last piece from DiCaprio's character. But after weeks of playing the victim to DiCaprio's roughhousing, Hill felt like he needed a little retribution against his costar. During the first take of the sushi scene, Hill went off script and said "No, you have it," when offered the last piece of sushi. Apparently, he was familiar with director Martin Scorsese's penchant for shooting the same scene over and over, because they re-shot that scene dozens of times. At the end of the night, DiCaprio had eaten about 70 pieces of raw yellowtail and was puking into a trash can.
Hill didn't feel too guilty about that prank (Scorsese thought it was hilarious), but there was a little bit of retribution. One afternoon, DiCaprio ran up to Hill screaming like a rabid fan and someone caught it on tape. The video went viral, leading Hill to comment that he felt bad for his friend and co-star that a moment between them couldn't escape the public eye.
Finnick and poop paper
The Hunger Games franchise starred a bunch of young talent, and when you get a bunch of kids hanging around together, you're bound to get some pranks. Josh Hutcherson, who plays Peeta Mellark, was one of the most notorious culprits. Apparently, Hutcherson found a spray that smelled like "skunk poop" and sprayed it onto the toilet paper in Finnick Odair actor Sam Claflin's trailer, then hid the reeking toilet paper in the trash can.
Claflin couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from, and said that he was "going nuts" and thought someone kept sneaking into his trailer and pooping in his bathroom. Hutcherson did finally confess, and they took the trash out. Poor Finnick.
Surprise guests on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Chalk this one up as ultra bizarre. During filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Steven Spielberg orchestrated a super weird prank on Harrison Ford. Once thought to be a rumor, real footage has surfaced to prove that it's true, and it's glorious. In the scene, Indiana Jones is tied to a boulder and about to be whipped from behind. Rather than one of the bad guys from the film, Spielberg had Barbra Streisand show up to do the whipping. With each lash, Streisand would berate Ford for his movies, shouting lines like "This is for all the money you're going to make on Return of the Jedi!"
To top things off, Carrie Fisher shows up to shield Ford from the blows. Well played, Spielberg. Well played.
Paul Newman almost killed Otto Preminger
Paul Newman thought Otto Preminger, who directed the 1960 film Exodus, was pretty hard to work with. So while they were filming one day, Newman decided to give Preminger a little shock. The scene had Newman in a fist fight on one of the top-floor balconies of a building. Preminger was filming from the ground. During one of the takes, Newman put a life-size dummy on the balcony and had the other guy punch it so that it flew off the balcony and splattered on the pavement below. From Preminger's vantage point, it looked like his movie star had just fallen to his death. Unfortunately, the prank worked a little too well: Preminger collapsed from the shock and required first aid.
Newman pulled pranks on other directors, too. He cut George Roy Hill's desk and car in half. But at least he bought the guy a new sports car.
April Fool's on American Hustle
Jennifer Lawrence just can't catch a break. While filming American Hustle, her co-stars Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper had an idea to freak her out. Lawrence was already nervous about filming in a graveyard (which was for a scene that didn't make it into the final cut), and Cooper and Bale had the prop team make a gravestone that read: "Jennifer Lawrence, born August 15, 1890, died April 1, 1913." Lawrence reportedly screamed and said, "That's MY name! Is this just a coincidence, or am I going to die?"
Obviously, if Lawrence had read closely, she would have seen that the name doppleganger died in 1913, and on April 1st, for that matter. The creepiest thing about the prank? The fake Jennifer Lawrence lived to be 23, and the actor Jennifer Lawrence, born in 1990, was 23 when American Hustle came out. Not cool, guys.
Sam Claflin's fishy feet
Reportedly, the set of Me Without You was less than super-serious, despite the heartbreaking story the movie told. Emilia Clarke and her costar Sam Claflin played a number of pranks on each other, but one of Clarke's was definitely the most bizarre. She says, "I put fish that I'd had for lunch in his socks and they were new socks, and he's really clean and he's really like, obsessed with his feet and he didn't like that one bit."
Claflin said that he gagged when he found the fish, which is totally understandable. While Claflin played some pranks on his pretty costar, like stealing all the furniture out of her room, Clarke took the practical jokes to a new level. In addition to the fishy foot assault, she also planted a fart machine in the wheelchair Claflin used to play paralyzed businessman Will Traynor. Needless to say, Clarke might be a big star, but she's still a kid at heart.
Head-smashing on Lord of the Rings
Peter Jackson's sprawling Lord of the Rings films are beautiful, well-acted, and mostly pretty serious. That could be why Viggo Mortensen decided to start a new tradition on set. According to Dominic Monaghan, Mortensen head butts people. Hard. It's kind of like his way of saying "hello." Monaghan says that on his birthday, Mortensen head-butted him so hard that he almost blacked out. This went on for the filming of all three movies, and the rest of the cast caught on.
A behind-the-scenes video features cast and crew members talking about all the head butting that went on during the filming of the LOTR series. Elijah Wood called it "spontaneous, violent love." The practice even made its way to the premieres.
George Clooney and people's crotches
Ryan Gosling had an interesting story to tell while promoting 2011's Crazy Stupid Love. According to Gosling, on the set of Ides of March, George Clooney had a thing about people's crotches. Gosling said that Clooney would walk up to him and start a serious conversation, but "then you walk away and your pants are wet. He's had like an Evian spray bottle. He's been spraying your crotch the whole time."
George Clooney is a notorious trickster. From decking out his private areas with glasses and a cigarette and taking pictures with friends' cameras to pretending to abuse a kitten, his timeline of pranks is extremely well-documented. Just makes you wonder, though. What's his thing with crotches?