Actors Who Fell Asleep On Set
Acting can appear to be a glamorous business, but in reality, there's an awful lot of downtime on the set. Of course, when the cameras are rolling, we expect our stars to be alert on on their game—but every so often, a scene calls for so little from an actor that it's too hard to resist the temptation to catch a few z's. We'll never know how many times a Hollywood vet has gotten away with napping on set, but these actors suffered the embarrassment of getting caught.
James Phelps
James Phelps gave himself a nap while filming one of the most pivotal and saddest moments of the entire Harry Potter series: the death of his character, Fred Weasley, in Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Since all he really had to do was lay there with his eyes closed while his co-stars did all the emoting, it's not too surprising that he checked out. "It was kind of cool, because every guy wants to be in an action movie and that's what this is. But I pretty much just laid there and fell asleep," Phelps told Parade. "I think it was more of a challenge for the other guys than me."
Gucci Mane
Sleeping through your own death scene is one thing—sleeping through your own sex scene is quite another. But that's exactly what happened to rapper Gucci Mane on the set of Spring Breakers. While he remained seated and his female co-star climbed aboard (he asked director Harmony Korine for that particular arrangement so he "wouldn't have to do any physical labor"), the crew suddenly heard snoring. To be fair, Korine explained, Mane had apparently been smoking marijuana on the set all day, a drug which—fun fact—has been known to occasionally induce a little extra shuteye.
Norm Macdonald
Norm Macdonald and Adam Sandler were part of a group interview on Conan in 2016 during which they talked about their time filming Billy Madison in 1994—including a day when Norm dozed off. While shooting a scene, Sandler fed Macdonald a line and waited for his reply...and kept waiting and kept waiting, until he finally realized that Norm had fallen asleep. Macdonald thinks it probably happened because he was playing a drunk character, and he'd done some method acting by, well, actually getting drunk.
Jason Isaacs
Insomnia and jet lag added up to an unplanned snooze for Jason Isaacs, who admitted to Total Film (via Celebretainment) that while filming a scene for 2016's Red Dog: True Blue in which his character's watching a movie, the dark room and comfy chair got the best of him. "I never go for a nap. I wish I could. I'm a terrible insomniac," said Isaacs. "But I have fallen asleep in a scene. In fact, on Red Dog, I had just got to Australia from England ... There was a long tracking shot, and when they got to the end they thought I was taking a very long, dramatic, pause. And then they all realized I was fast asleep." It didn't hurt the end result, which was one of the better-reviewed Australian releases of the year.
Treat Williams
Forget about crying on command—an actor's greatest challenge might just be staying awake while peacefully reclining in bed. It's a challenge that ultimately got the better of Treat Williams while filming the 1984 gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America, specifically during a sequence filmed after his character had been shot. "I'm lying in the bed, and we were talking, and then all of a sudden I feel somebody's arm on my shoulder," Williams told Entertainment Weekly. "I look up and it's Bob De Niro saying, 'Hey.' I go, 'Hey, what's up?' He goes, 'You wanna say your line? We rolled, and you were asleep. Wanna join us?'"