15 Movie Moments That Caught The Actors By Surprise

Sometimes, the best acting comes from not acting, which has been especially true when making horror movies. During Alien's famous "chestburster" scene, Ridley Scott gave the actors as little information as possible to make their reactions to Kane's death more genuine. They had absolutely no idea that an alien would burst out of actor John Hurt's body in a geyser of blood. In fact, Veronica Cartwright was so frightened when the blood hit her that she actually passed out.

The second Pirates film ended with Davy Jones's pet Kraken destroying the Black Pearl and taking Captain Jack Sparrow with it. It also ended with the surviving crew members encountering their former adversary, Captain Barbossa, who was miraculously brought to life. But the actors starring in the scene were allegedly told that Zoe Saldana's character, Anamaria, would make an appearance instead of Barbossa. So the actors shared in our surprise when we saw Geoffrey Rush's character come back from the dead.

Technically, actor Alan Rickman was aware that his character, the villainous Hans Gruber, would fall to his death. It's just that stunt coordinator Charlie Picerni said to Rickman that they would drop him on the count of "three," but Picerni made the stunt guys drop him at "one." So Rickman's surprised reaction when he makes the plunge was actually real.

One of the most memorable scenes from William Friedkin's horror classic was when the possessed Regan sprays green vomit on Jason Miller's Father Karras's face. But unlike all the other entries on this list, this moment was actually an accident. The vomit was supposed to hit Karras's chest, but the hidden apparatus firing it hit Miller's mouth by mistake, making his disgusted reaction real. It also made him really angry.

To say that Alfred Hitchcock was a jerk to Tippi Hedrin on the set of The Birds is an understatement. Hedren claims that, during the scene in which the birds nearly peck her character to death, the mechanical birds that Hitchcock promised he would use were replaced with actual birds at the last minute. Hedren was so severely injured that she had to spend a week recovering before shooting again, and Hitchcock allegedly did this to her because she rejected his sexual advances.

During the production of this pivotal horror film, the three main actors spent eight days in the woods with their camera and no actual script no actual script, just a short outline of the film and some notes telling them to act a certain way during each day of filming. All in all, they had to make up their lines while out in the wilderness, and since they had little food and the filmmakers scared them at night, their reactions became more authentic and more terrifying.

Everyone loves the hilarious and heartfelt interactions between Matt Damon and Robin Williams in this acclaimed drama film. But the scene in which both men are talking about Sean's farting wife was ad-libbed by Williams, and Damon couldn't help but crack up laughing like the rest of us. Even the cameraman was laughing while filming this scene, which is why the picture was so shaky. You know Robin Williams is a comedy legend when even the film crew couldn't keep it together. Rest in peace.

Everyone remembers Chrissie's infamous death at the beginning of Steven Spielberg's horror masterpiece. And though the stunt woman playing the unfortunate shark victim knew that she would be yanked around in the water before her death, she didn't know when. After shooting the scene a few times, Spielberg decided to have his crew yank on the harness she was wearing when she wasn't expecting it, so she was actually frightened during this scene.

Any cinephile would know about this moment from Martin Scorcese's magnum opus, Goodfellas. But you may not know that this scene was inspired by a real-life conversation Joe Pesci had with a mobster, and after sharing it with Scorcese, they both decided to include it in the film. But since it wasn't added to the shooting script, the other actors, except for Ray Liotta, didn't know that Pesci would do this monologue, so they were truly terrified by him while the scene was filmed.

This legendary moment in cinema blew everyone away, including the cast of the film itself. The big reveal that Darth Vader was Luke's father was kept secret from almost the entire cast until the final film was released. The filmmakers accomplished this by having Vader's actor, David Prowse, say that Obi-Wan killed Luke's father instead, with James Earl Jones dubbing the real dialogue later in production. Only Irvin Kershner, George Lucas, and Mark Hamill knew the dialogue would be voiced over later, and they kept the secret until the film was released.