15 On-Set Beefs That Will Go Down in Hollywood History
From Warner Bros. Pictures/Everett Collection.Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones
Jim Carrey is an acquired taste—one that Tommy Lee Jones never acquired. Carrey learned that the hard way when the pair got together to shoot the 1995 film Batman Forever. The night before a big scene, both actors happened to be at the same restaurant, so the comedian went over to say hello. Here’s what happened next, according to his 2014 interview with Howard Stern:
“The blood drained from his face in such a way that I realized that I had become the face of his pain or something. And he got up, kind of shaking, and hugged me and said, ‘I hate you. I really don’t like you.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, okay, what’s going on, man?’ And he said, ‘I cannot sanction your buffoonery.’”
Left, from Photos 12/Alamy; Right, from Everett Collection.Shelley Duvall and Stanley Kubrick
In a 1980 interview with Roger Ebert, Shelley Duvall described working with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining as “almost unbearable.” Kubrick’s directing method is the stuff of truly grim cinematic legend; he forced her to cry for hours and hours, subjecting her to “some pretty cruel” filming tactics, she said. Duvall says she was so stressed her health took a dive and, as the story goes, some of her hair started falling out. Despite it all, Duvall said in another interview that she still respects and likes Kubrick.
From Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection.Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts
In a 1993 New York Times interview, Roberts said while her I Love Trouble co-star can be “completely charming and very nice, he’s also completely disgusting. He’s going to hate me for saying this, but he seems to go out of his way to repel people.” Later rumors circulating in the Los Angeles Times alleged that “tempers flared” on the set so much the “two played more to stand-ins than to each other.”
From Everett Collection.Steven Spielberg and Julia Roberts
While we’re on Roberts, why not mention her experience on the 1991 cult classic Hook? Roberts played Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg’s live-action Peter Pan adaptation, but was reportedly nicknamed “Tinkerhell” on set. In a 60 Minutes interview, Spielberg had this to say about the the Oscar-winner: “It was an unfortunate time for us to work together.” In a 1999 VF interview, Roberts said comments about her being difficult weren’t true and “really hurt my feelings.” She “couldn’t believe this person that I knew and trusted was actually hesitating to come to my defense . . . it was the first time that I felt I had a turncoat in my midst.”
From Touchstone Pictures/Everett Collection.Tyrese and James Franco
Tyrese might not have beef with the Rock, but he definitely had beef with the Franco. While filming the 2006 Navy drama Annapolis, Franco decided to go Method, which led to him actually punch Tyrese during boxing scenes.
“The dude was full-on hitting me,” Tyrese told Elle in 2007. “I was always like, ‘James, lighten up, man. We’re just practicing.’ He never lightened up.”
Franco denied hitting Tyrese for real, but says he takes “full blame for any problems on that film . . . I was probably a jerk. I was not purposely cruel to him, but I was probably so wrapped up in my performance that I was not as friendly as I could have been.”
From Everett Collection.David O. Russell and George Clooney
David O. Russell has developed quite a reputation for dramatic behavior on his sets. But more than a decade before his McConaissance-style comeback with The Fighter in 2010, he was hard at work on the 1999 project Three Kings starring George Clooney. According to Clooney, Russell would yell and scream at the crew, and things eventually got so bad that the pair got into a physical fight. The animosity didn’t quite dissolve after filming. In a 2003 Vanity Fair profile of the actor, here’s one of the charming quotes Russell contributed to the piece: “George Clooney can suck my dick.”
Both images from Fox Searchlight/Everett Collection.David O. Russell and Lily Tomlin
Ah yes, we’re not done with Russell yet. In 2004, the hot-headed director was filming the dramedy I Heart Huckabees, starring Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman. However, in 2007, two behind-the-scenes videos were leaked on the Internet, featuring Russell and Tomlin getting into a heated argument. In the second clip, Russell completely loses his cool, calling Tomlin a “bitch” and a “c*nt,” and shoving everything off a desk, sending things flying at a crew member sitting in the corner of the room.
In an interview soon after the footage leaked, Tomlin said she loves Russell, adding that he was “under a tremendous amount of pressure.” In a 2013 interview, Russell said the two "love each other, and we would work together tomorrow."
(For what it’s worth, last year saw the return of another Russell scuffle. Amy Adams says the director made her cry while filming American Hustle, adding that she was “devastated on set.”)
From Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.Roman Polanski and Faye Dunaway
It’s no Hollywood secret that director Roman Polanski and star Faye Dunaway despised each other on the set of the 1974 classic Chinatown. In a Der Spiegel interview, Polanski claimed Dunaway was “very difficult. I nearly came to a halt.”
In one famous tale, Polanski plucked one of Dunaway’s hairs out of her head because it was catching the light. Another rumor claims that Dunaway threw a cup of urine at the director after he wouldn’t let her take a bathroom break. When asked about the incident in 2008 by the Guardian, Dunaway bristled, saying the question “doesn’t even deserve the dignity of a response,” and abruptly ended the interview.
From United Archives GmbH/Alamy.Lars von Trier and Björk
Dancer in the Dark is critically acclaimed musician Björk's first and last movie. For that, you can thank Lars von Trier. Filming the story of an immigrant worker saving up money for her son’s eye operation quickly became a practice in escalating deterioration. Things started off fraught, and soon Björk was skipping days on set, spitting at von Trier, and saying things like, “Never work with a Dane because he will eat your soul.” Von Trier responded by also skipping days on set and smashing a monitor.
Left, from Warner Bros. Pictures, right, from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, both from Everett Collection.Christian Bale and Shane Hurlbut
The beef heard ’round the world: In 2009, audio leaked of Christian Bale screaming at Terminator: Salvation’s director of photography Shane Hurlbut for walking in his line of sight during an intense scene. The footage immediately went viral. “Think for one fucking second! What the fuck are you doing?!” Bale yells. When Hurlbut eventually responds that he was looking at the light, Bale shouts out, “Oh goooood for you! And how was it? I hope it was fucking good, because it's useless now, isn't it!” The tirade continues for four minutes, with the actor eventually adding that if Hurlbut did this again, he’d quit the film, declaring the two were “done, professionally.”
Bale publicly apologized a few days later, calling in to Los Angeles radio station KROQ to say that he “acted like a punk” and had already apologized to Hurlbut.
From Warner Bros. Pictures/Everett Collection.Jamie Foxx and LL Cool J
While filming the football drama Any Given Sunday in 1999, LL Cool J got a little too into a fight scene with Jamie Foxx’s character, pushing and punching him for real. Foxx retaliated and an actual fight broke out, with local police getting called in to break it up. The fight was immortalized in Cool J’s 2000 track “U Can’t Fuck With Me,” where he rapped: “Once and for all, what’s my opinion on Jamie Foxx?/He pussy/Pussy ain’t funny as Chris Rock, ha.”
Left, from New Line/Everett Collection; Right, by Regis Martin/Getty Images.Wesley Snipes and director David Foyer on Blade: Trinity
The most vivid story of this beef comes courtesy of co-star Patton Oswalt. He says Snipes was “crazy in a hilarious way,” preferring to spend time in his trailer smoking weed, typically only coming to set to shoot close-ups. However, real friction kicked up when a black actor on the set wore a shirt with the word “Garbage” on it (by choice, Oswalt notes). When Snipes saw it, he was furious with Goyer, calling him a “racist motherfucker” and trying to choke him. In response, Goyer fake-hired a bunch of local bikers to act as his security, which freaked Snipes out so much that he “would only communicate with the director through Post-it notes” (each signed “From Blade”). The film flopped and Snipes filed a subsequent lawsuit against Goyer, Toby Emmerich, and New Line Cinema, claiming he was still owed $3 million on his fee and was subject to racist treatment. The suit was later settled.
From Twentieth Century Fox/Everett Collection.Kevin Smith and Bruce Willis
Kevin Smith will gladly (and very publicly) tell anyone who asks that he hated working with Bruce Willis on the 2010 comedy Cop Out. He’s called the experience “soul-crushing” and declared Willis the “unhappiest, most bitter, and meanest emo-bitch I’ve ever met at any job I’ve held down.” In his Q&A series Too Fat for 40, he told an especially long story that exemplifies how “terrified” he was of working with the actor.
From Warner Bros. Pictures/Everett Collection.Tom Sizemore and Val Kilmer
Bad blood was brewing on the set of 2000 film Red Planet. According to Sizemore’s memoir (which by all accounts sounds like a truly salacious read), Kilmer grew angry when he found out production paid to ship Sizemore’s elliptical machine to the Australian set, shouting “I’m making $10 million on this; you’re only making two.” Sizemore responded by throwing a 50-pound weight at the actor, though he missed. Things got so bad one of the producers asked Sizemore to just avoid Kilmer’s face when, not if, he eventually hit him. The time came—so Sizemore hit him in the chest. But in case you’re wondering, he says the two are cool now.
From Ullstein Bild/Getty Images.Bette Davis and Joan Crawford
Has there ever been a more iconic rivalry between two legendary actresses? Davis and Crawford famously detested each other for decades, which was the perfect set-up for their 1962 melodrama classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Both stars allegedly found sneaky ways to lash out at each other. Davis reportedly requested a Coke vending machine for the set, knowing that Crawford had been married to the C.E.O. of Pepsi. She also actually kicked Crawford in the head during a kicking scene. For her part, Crawford snuck weights in her pockets for one scene where Davis had to drag her body around.
The icing on the Baby Jane cake is that Davis was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar over Crawford. The legend goes that Crawford contacted all the other nominees and arranged to accept the award on their behalf if they were unable to make it to the show. Lo and behold, Anne Bancroft ended up winning, but was on Broadway at the time, so Crawford made her way to the Oscars stage after all. Ah, a good bit of shade never gets old.
