Biggest On-Set Movie Feuds And Fights

When you put a bunch of Hollywood stars together in a movie there is bound to be some egos clashing, most of the time they all get on with it and act professionally or the studio keeps it under wraps. This is not always the case, here is the biggest fights and feuds that have happened on-set of a movie.

Lily Tomlin vs. David O. Russell, “I Heart Huckabees”

After watching Tomlin’s sour attitude and director Russell’s epic freakouts on the set of “I Heart Huckabees,” it’s hard to tell which person started the downward slide. Was it Tomlin, whose impatience with all the changes Russell was suggesting seemed to indicate she was having a senior moment and couldn’t keep up? Or was it Russell, who might have written a more solid script to begin with and maybe should’ve thought twice before calling his leading lady a bitch or a c*** in front of the cast and crew. Pity poor Jason Schwartzman, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert and especially the cringing, giggling Naomi Watts, who had to sit there as the abuse flew perilously close to their heads. But hooray for whoever caught this dysfunctional mess on tape. It’s infinitely more gripping than the movie.

George Clooney vs. David O. Russell, “Three Kings”

Russell has a hard time pleading that what happened with Tomlin wasn’t like him, since five years earlier he got into a feud with Clooney on the set of the Gulf War satire “Three Kings” that led to Clooney punching his lights out. In fairness to Russell, he told Clooney to punch him. In fairness to Clooney, Russell was picking on the little people on the set – an extra here, a driver there – and Clooney got so tired of it, he wrote Russell an angry letter and then took to giving him a piece of his mind directly in front of his face. We think that second assistant director Paul F. Bernard had the right idea – he walked off the set when he witnessed this nonsense, quitting his job on the spot. But Ice Cube, who played a soldier alongside Clooney, said the on-set conflict gave the final scenes of the film extra juice and he “wouldn’t mind if the director and the star got into an argument on all of my movies.” Yeah, but Cube’s from South Central Los Angeles, so “Conflict” is his middle name. We’re just sorry no one caught this sandbox quarrel on tape and made a disco remix out of it.

Christian Bale vs. Shane Hurlbut, “Terminator Salvation”

“What don’t you f***ing understand, Shane?” Don’t you know it’s unconscionable for a Director of Photography to walk where an actor can – gasp! – see him? Even if said Director of Photography was just doing his job, fiddling with some lights, setting up a shot? Bale was concentrating really, really hard on filming a scene in “Terminator Salvation” when unlucky Hurlbut got in the way and got a four-minute, expletive-heavy earful about what a horrible person he was and how he needed to be fired, that instant. Lucky for us, someone taped it. Even luckier, someone else turned the rant into an awesome disco remix. Bale’s career has yet to recover – surely no one’s thinking of hiring him for a romantic comedy or to play a hapless single dad anytime soon. Although, Bale is next set to star in “The Fighter” directed by (wait for it) David O. Russell. Maybe they should shorten the title by a couple of letters and call it a day.

Kim Cattrall vs. Sarah Jessica Parker, “Sex and the City”

Reports of on-set bitchiness between Cattrall and Parker are so frequent, there’s got to be some truth to them, right? During production of the movie sequel spun from the hit HBO series, “sources” were busy telling sites like icelebz.com and snarkerati.com that “while the cast is all smiles on the outside, the level of dislike is unbelievable,” making “co-stars Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis dread coming into work.” One site claims Cattrall’s irritability over her recent break-up with her younger chef lover means she’s “taking every chance to snipe.” Another says Parker was overwhelmed having to care for her newborn twins and was “too busy to comfort Kim or worry about her problems at the moment.” Both ladies officially scoff at these reports. Parker said to Elle magazine recently that “I don’t think anybody wants to believe that I love Kim. I adore her. I wouldn’t have done the movie without her. Didn’t and wouldn’t.” She should’ve added “couldn’t,” seeing as Cattrall is one of the core four, after all. Cattrall has always wielded her power mercenarily, using it to demand higher pay and to confirm the sequel before Parker could. If only they’d bring this catfight onto the big screen – that might make the sequel worth watching. Barely.

Sean Young vs. Darryl Hannah, Charlie Sheen and Oliver Stone, “Wall Street”

Before Sean Young made an idiot of herself showing up on a studio lot in a Catwoman outfit to beg for a part in the next “Batman” movie, she made herself into a pariah by suggesting that she should get another actress’s role… while that actress was filming it. It was on the set of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” that Darryl Hannah was allegedly struggling to play Charlie Sheen’s materialistic girlfriend. Stone later admitted “Hannah was not happy doing the role and I should have let her go. All my crew wanted to get rid of her after one day of shooting. My pride was such that I kept saying I was going to make it work.” Young, who had the smaller role of Michael Douglas’s wife, had no interest in making things work: she told Stone to fire Hannah and give her the plum part instead. Sheen protested Young’s antics in grade four fashion – he taped a note to her back that read “I am a c***.” Young paraded around with that sign for hours before noticing. Stone also got so fed up with Young that he wrapped one of her scenes early and had her dumped at the bus station. Long after the movie came out, Stone agreed with Young that he should’ve swapped Young and Hannah’s roles. But it’s not like he, or anyone else of any distinction, has ever hired Young again.

Debra Winger vs. Shirley MacLaine, “Terms of Endearment”

Speaking of grade four hijinks, have you heard the one where Debra Winger flipped up her skirt and serenaded her onscreen mother Shirley MacLaine with her, um, wind instrument while they filmed “Terms of Endearment”? These two were at odds almost from the moment they met in writer-director James L. Brooks’ apartment. MacLaine remembers thinking “Oh my goodness” when she saw Winger clomp in dressed in combat boots and a miniskirt. Their characters were supposed to be at odds, too, so presumably Brooks indulged their feud. Lord knows how far things actually went. Winger recently copped to getting into fisticuffs with MacLaine, telling CBS News Sunday Morning that “there might have been a scuffle. I don’t remember. I mean, we were wild, you know.” Oh, we know. Thanks be to gossip, we know.

Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin vs. Everyone, “The Marrying Man”

Baldwin fell in love with Basinger while making the romantic comedy “The Marrying Man” in 1991 and became a married man himself shortly after. But if you know anything about how bitter their custody battle is, you can guess how volatile their courtship was. According to reports from flabbergasted crew members, between takes Basinger would tell Baldwin exactly what she wanted to do to him later in bed, not caring that other people could hear. She also didn’t wear underwear and often sat spread-eagled, forcing assistants to throw towels over her legs, and perhaps some crew members to walk around covering their own legs. Meanwhile, Baldwin would throw things whenever a scene didn’t go his way, at one point almost hitting an electrician with a chair. One crew member said, “You’ve read about all the tantrums, the chair-throwing, the phone-smashing. Living it was 100 times worse. If Baldwin slammed a door, Basinger would slam another door harder. It was like they were two little kids, having a contest to see who could be the brattiest.” A senior crew guy called their behaviour “vile, deplorable, despicable” and claimed that “if I were destitute and living on the street with no food and somebody offered me a million dollars to work with Alec and Kim, I’d pass.” Screenwriter Neil Simon also hated the experience of working with them. “With a play, I have only two people to please – myself and the director,” he said. “With this movie, it was 19 executives, a director who’d never done anything but animation before, and two stars who would tell you what lines they’d say and what lines they wouldn’t say.” Needless to say, the movie flopped. Too much drama behind the scenes, not enough left for onscreen.

Marlon Brando vs. Frank Oz, “The Score”

Oz was the voice of Miss Piggy. Brando had become a big piggy. They worked together for awhile on the heist flick “The Score” in 2001, until Brando got so fed up with being told to tone down his flamboyant performance as a homosexual crook that he started calling Oz “Miss Piggy” and telling him, “f*** you.” Other stunts the legendary actor pulled include: bringing in a note from his doctor saying he’s allergic to Oz so that he wouldn’t have to be in the same room as him; refusing to take direction from anyone but Robert De Niro, so Oz had to watch from offsite and send notes to De Niro via an assistant director; and taking off his pants so Oz had to shoot him from the waist up only. Oz later made this legendary understatement: “When you deal with someone like Marlon, you expect quirkiness.” If by “quirky” he means “jerky,” we totally agree.

Bill Murray vs. Lucy Liu, “Charlie’s Angels”

We saved the best for last. Do you know why Bill Murray was replaced by Bernie Mac in the “Charlie’s Angels” sequel? Rumour has it that Murray hates Lucy Liu with a passion and refuses to work with her again. According to Variety, one day Liu complained about the writing of a scene she was shooting with Murray, then Murray complained about Liu’s critique, and soon their costars Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz were fleeing for their trailers, causing shooting to shut down for the day so Liu and Murray could cool off. Murray’s alleged to have turned to each Angel and said: “I get why you’re [Barrymore] here, and you’ve [Diaz] got talent … but what in the hell are you [Liu] doing here? You can’t act!” Liu got so enraged that she ran over and started throwing punches at Murray. Both actors later claimed they had a teensy bout of “creative differences” that was blown out of proportion, and was certainly not the cause of Murray pulling out of the sequel. Liu denied that production was shut down and said that “if I had punched him or anything, I would have remembered.” But Murray sounds more honest when he admits that “for 15 or 20 minutes there, we went to our separate corners and threw hand-grenades and sky rockets at each other.” The proof will be in whether we ever see them in another movie together. Who wants to hold their breath?

I absolutely love the last one, I can totally picture Lucy Liu flipping her shit and throwing punches at Bill Murray.

source: Hollywood’s craziest on-set feuds [MSN Entertainment]

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