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Noah Centineo improvised that perfect lil' pocket spin in To All the Boys I've Loved Before.
1. Donald Faison, who played Murray in Clueless, told Vulture that he came up with his character's "keeping it real" defense when he got his head shaved during a party. Faison said, "Some kid in my neighborhood said, 'Just keep it real. Just make sure you keep it real.' And I was like, 'Oh. That’s what the kids are saying now?' And so I put that in there myself: 'I’m keepin’ it real. Because I’m keepin’ it real.'"
Paramount Pictures
2. Constance Wu revealed in a BUILD series interview that she improvised the "bok, bok, bitch" line in Crazy Rich Asians, which was featured in the movie's trailer. Wu said, "Jon [Chu, the director] wasn’t sure about it, but I was like, ‘Let’s just film, let’s just put it in! Gotta make a strong choice.'"
Warner Bros. / youtube.com
During the same interview, Awkwafina said, "Jon Chu really trusted his actors, and he let us improv. It’s hard to improv because when you take that liberty and do a line and the director yells, ‘Mmm, let’s just do it off the book,’ it’s like a small death occurs. Jon was not like that."
3. At the end of 10 Things I Hate About You, Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) starts to cry while reading her poem about Patrick (Heath Ledger) to the class (and also, you know, Patrick). Stiles told Cosmopolitan that those tears were "not intentional." She said, "On some level I knew that I was supposed to be somewhat emotional, because when we did the table read I remember I just said the poem, and I could have been reciting the phone book."
Touchstone Pictures
Stiles went on, "But I never expected that I was going to start crying. I don't know why I did, whether it connected to something going on at the time, or if I was just overwhelmed by the whole experience of making my first big movie."
4. The Crazy, Stupid, Love montage where Jacob (Ryan Gosling) and Hannah (Emma Stone) joke around and get to know each other in bed was "all improvised," according to a tweet written by Dan Fogelman, the film's screenwriter.
Warner Bros. Pictures
While he called it his "favorite scene," Fogelman wasn't convinced when it was filmed. He wrote, "I thought everyone had lost their minds and that none of it would be in the movie — I left set early, irritated." But it clearly won him over, and he called himself a "dope" for ever doubting it.
5. To All the Boys I've Loved Before director Susan Johnson told Entertainment Tonight that the flirtatious lil' pocket spin Peter (Noah Centineo) does to Lara Jean (Lana Condor) was improvised by Centineo.
Netflix
Johnson said, "He did it in the rehearsal, and I was like, 'That is beautiful, we’re going to change the shot around!' He’s a natural flirt, so he knew what he was doing."
6. According to Cary Elwes's memoir As You Wish, he came up with Westley's headfirst leap into the Fire Swamp's quicksand to save Buttercup in The Princess Bride. Originally, Westley was supposed to hold his nose and cannonball in, but Elwes wrote, "There was something rather unheroic about jumping into quicksand feet-first." So he pitched the dive, and once it was tested by a stuntman, he was allowed to do it himself.
20th Century Fox
7. Director Rob Reiner told Entertainment Weekly that Billy Crystal came up with some of the lines from Harry's declaration of love to Sally in When Harry Met Sally... Specifically, Crystal is responsible for the bit about Sally's nose crinkle, and "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible," which Reiner called a "great line."
Columbia Pictures / youtube.com
Reiner also revealed that he and Crystal came up with the idea to have Harry spit grape seeds out the window during his road trip with Sally, because Reiner wanted him to be "a little bit rougher around the edges to start."
8. Hank Azaria, who played Agador Spartacus in The Birdcage, told the AV Club that Armand (Robin Williams) slipping in the kitchen during the disastrous family dinner was an accident that the cast decided to keep acting through.
United Artists
Azaria said, "And if you watch that little piece of film again, you’ll see me laughing and Robin laughing. It’s one of those things that happens that you never really think they’re going to use, but I was so emotionally upset in the scene — I was supposed to be crying — that I just pretended that he was making me cry even more. But I was actually laughing."
9. Kumail Nanjiani told Rolling Stone that the moment in The Big Sick where Emily (Zoe Kazan) and Kumail admit that they are "completely overwhelmed" by each other was the result of an improv session between the two actors. Nanjiani said, "We did a lot of emotional improv, and that scene came out of something Zoe and I did together. She said, 'I am overwhelmed by you,' and I was like, 'I don’t know what to say,' so I just repeated it back to her. We knew the scene was about one person opening up and the other person not being able to reciprocate."
Amazon
Nanjiani went on, "I loved that moment because it was so weird: It’s not like the other person doesn’t say 'I love you' — it’s that the other person says it exactly the same way. After we did that, we were like, 'Wow, that felt so strange.'"
10. The moment in Palm Springs where lovers Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) tattoo dicks onto each other's backs (as one does, when you're in a consequence-free eternal time loop) was improvised by the stars, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Hulu
The dicks were drawn on with eyeliner. Director Max Barbakow said about this and other unscripted moments, "I like when you feel like you are getting away with something."
11. Ali Wong told Rolling Stone that Keanu Reeves improvised several of his own bits for his appearance in Always Be My Maybe, including a part where he starts listing Chinese dignitaries to one-up Marcus (Randall Park).
Netflix
Wong said, "At the Chateau Marmont, he pitched a couple of things that made it in. Like wearing glasses that had no lens. And the part in the game night scene where he lists all of these Chinese dignitaries, that was all his idea. And when he says, 'I don’t have a problem, Sasha. What’s your problem?' and starts air-fighting. It’s hard to describe just how shockingly funny he is."
12. In 50/50, the sequence where Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) shaves his head after he begins to experience the aftereffects of chemotherapy, with best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) present for emotional support, was entirely improvised by the duo. What makes that even more impressive is the fact that they only had one take to get it right, since Gordon-Levitt actually shaved his head. Rogen told MTV News, "We only had one shot at it. It was the first day of filming, and we improvised the whole thing, which is not wise when it's something you have one take for, but it turned out funny. It went exactly how you see it in the movie, which was pretty good, I think."
Summit Entertainment
I was on the fence about categorizing 50/50 as a rom-com, but upon further reflection, I would argue there are two love stories here: The romance between Adam and Katherine (Anna Kendrick), and the friendship between Adam and Kyle. The moment before Adam's major surgery where he discovers that Kyle bought and took notes in a book called Facing Cancer Together? That's love.
13. In an interview for the American Film Institute, Pretty Woman director Garry Marshall revealed that he filmed the moment where Edward (Richard Gere) closes the jewelry box on Vivian (Julia Roberts) for the "gag reel." Roberts didn't know Gere was going to do it, and Marshall said that she "laughed so honestly that we left it in the picture."
14. Richard Curtis, who wrote and directed Love Actually, told Elle that the scene where Karen (Emma Thompson) realizes that her husband is cheating on her and excuses herself to go upstairs and cry was for the most unscripted part, with Thompson left to fill in the emotional blanks. Curtis said, "Emma's scene with the Joni Mitchell song is very extraordinary, because I didn't do it. I just wrote that she goes upstairs, puts on the record, and lets the emotion show. Everything in that scene is just Emma."
Universal Pictures / youtube.com
Curtis went on, "We did that 12 times in four different sizes. She had to do it again and again. A brutal bit of sorrow." This, along with the scene where Mark (Andrew Lincoln) tells Juliet (Keira Knightley) that he loves her with cue cards, are Curtis's favorites from the film.
15. According to her obituary in the L.A. Times, Olympia Dukakis improvised her Moonstruck character Rose Castorini's line, "Your life is going down the toilet." Apparently, she got the idea from her "experiences with her own mother."
16. And finally: In an interview with Collider about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Aubrey Plaza (Julie Powers) and Kieran Culkin (Wallace Wells) said there wasn't much improv in the movie, besides two moments that Culkin remembered. The first was when Wallace comes home from a night out and hits Scott's head with his keys...
Universal Pictures
...and the second was Chris Evans as Lucas Lee reacting to a notification with a genuine, "That's actually hilarious." Neither moment was scripted, but director Edgar Wright thought they were funny enough to make it into the final cut.
Universal Pictures
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