The 11 Worst Things Actors Had To Do For Sci-Fi Movies
Movie magic relies on a swath of visual elements falling into place, including CGI, makeup, and sets, as well as the dangerous work that stunt performers handle. A well-run movie set does what it can to avoid unnecessary risks to actors and crew, but sometimes, a scene requires everyone to run on the razor's edge. At this point, the problem isn't just ameliorating the risk of an accident, but what could happen even if everything goes right. This is where stunt performers shine, and it's an insult that these crucial movie crew members still go without recognition at the top awards shows.
Sometimes, however, there's no way around it. The star must be in the picture, and it's up to them to decide whether they're up for taking a risk. Well, usually it's up to them. Not all sets are managed well, and there's a legacy of directors willing to push their teams to the limits of their endurance. The results may be spectacular. But the aftermath? Not so much. Let's talk about some of the ugliest behind-the-scenes moments, specifically in sci-fi movies, which turned a few of our favorite actors into chew toys.
Drowning in The Abyss
James Cameron's obsession with the water started long before he prepared "Avatar" in earnest. His fascination with the deep sea drives the otherworldly plot of "The Abyss," arguably his most underrated sci-fi wonder. To accomplish this unique first contact story, the production would have to spend half their time filming underwater. Cast and crew underwent dive training, and a variety of tanks and underwater lakes made up the unusual sets.
Despite rigorous safety efforts, however, the shoot was torturous for Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Harris had to hold his breath while his eyes swelled from a liquid pumped inside his helmet, with the stress of this and continuous retakes leading him into emotional breakdowns. Mastrantonio, meanwhile, endured repeated takes of a resuscitation scene that required her to lay bare, and be struck repeatedly across the face. Behind the scenes, divers dealt with skin burns from heavy chlorination. The toll on the cast and crew is sometimes brushed over in retrospective pieces focused on the results, with a few at least pointing out that those results required Ed Harris to be near death from oxygen loss. James Cameron gets a lot of pushback from actors for his aggressive, often hostile directorial style. Maybe he could use a little more.
Blade Runner treated Sean Young worse than a Replicant
Sean Young experienced decades of industry dismissal over rumors she was hard to work with, among other complaints. She denies these allegations, and investigations into them belong in articles devoted to her story. But what's undeniable is that Young was only 22 when "Blade Runner" rolled camera. It was her third film and her first major part. It's also undeniable that Ridley Scott wields a firm hand as a director, with "Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner" by Paul M. Sammon chronicling numerous times the crew nearly rioted under his control. Harrison Ford, meanwhile, didn't get along with Young, and Carrie Fisher's final memoir paints him as a forbidding and intimidating man.
With all this in mind, it's impossible to watch the aggressive "love" scene between Deckard (Ford) and Rachel (Young) without a jaundiced eye. There's little charisma as Deckard forces her to say she wants to be kissed and touched by him. Instead, there's a primal hostility oozing off the screen. Even for hardcore "Blade Runner" fans, this typically rates as their least favorite sequence. It's not hard to explain why. The power dynamic, on-screen and off, put Sean Young in the position of a survivor of sexual assault.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Dune took a piece of Jurgen Prochnow with it
"Dune" 2021 borrows nothing from its 1984 predecessor, which is not only understandable, even for those of us who enjoyed David Lynch's weird take on Frank Herbert's mythos, but, as it turns out, great news for Oscar Isaac. Duke Leto Atreides becomes a tragic sacrifice in the operatic drama of Arrakis, as even his final moments end just short of triumph. In every version of "Dune," the Duke is brought before Baron Harkonnen, with poison hidden in his mouth. The 1984 version presents the Duke (Jürgen Prochnow) unleashing a thick green fog as a chemical attack. The Baron (Kenneth McMillan) dodges it, but he gets Piter (Brad Dourif), and Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) has a vision of the Baron tearing open his father's cheek through the gas.
To accomplish the effect, Prochnow allowed the effects team to pad his face with a fake cheek. Under it was the delivery tube for the green smoke, which would activate as the Baron tore through the rubber. Unfortunately, a malfunction occurred in the tube. The chemicals overheated inside the false cheek, and Prochnow wound up with some serious burns on his face. It was Prochnow's last day of filming — and not a great way to go out.
Terminator 2 nearly terminated Linda Hamilton's kneecaps
Linda Hamilton got ripped to reprise her role as Sarah Connor, Mother Mary of "The Terminator"'s robot holocaust, and, as per usual for a James Cameron production, was personally on deck for a lot of the action. When "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" opens, Sarah is inside a mental institute, dealing with Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen), the psychiatrist who encountered both her and Reese back in 1981. She's given up trying to convince him of the truth. Instead, Sarah's spent her time doing reps, and every chance she gets, she makes another escape attempt.
The night she finally succeeds, one of the people in her way is an orderly (Ken Gibbel) who likes his nightstick — not a euphemism — too much. Earlier that same day, he'd been beating her with it. According to the director's commentary track for the film – available on most home releases, except for the 2015 Blu-ray – Gibbel and Hamilton engaged in multiple takes of the orderly striking Sarah in the stomach until she falls to the ground on her knees, because Gibbel, apparently, kept visibly pulling his strikes. That meant hours of Hamilton crunching her knees on the floor, which anyone over 30 knows is a war crime. In return, when Sarah Connor escapes, her vengeful assault on the hapless orderly came with real heat, and the blows Gibbel took from a broomstick were real. Sorry, Mr. Gibbel.
Waterworld waterboarded Kevin Costner
As you might guess from the title, "Waterworld" has a lot of water in it. Like, a James Cameron amount of water, but with a filming method more akin to George Miller and "Mad Max: Fury Road." Hurricanes ate expensive movie sets. Jet skis were often required for transport. Two customized trimaran boats were made for Costner's lone Mariner to ride. Bonus, Costner's famous on-set temperament turned the shoot into a nightmare of risks and ego, driving off director Kevin Reynolds in the final weeks of filming. On the other hand, Costner's near-death experience during the shoot might still provide pleasant dreams for some of his coworkers.
At one point in the action, the nameless Mariner is lashed to the mast of one of the trimarans, weathering a squall. To film this scene, production moved to a gusty channel of water off the coast of Hawaii. Costner was actually lashed to the mast of one of the trimarans, and Mother Nature suddenly kicked up some hurricane-quality wind for free. Maybe She knew how the movie was going to turn out. Costner was stuck on that mast for at least half an hour, getting a saltwater brine until the squall passed and production could pull him down safely. Ironic that, three decades later, heavy flooding kept Costner from attending the 2023 Golden Globe Awards.
Alien Resurrection revived Ryder's fear of drowning
Winona Ryder was excited to be part of the "Alien" franchise, and no one should ever take that away from her. "Alien Resurrection" is, to put it kindly, an entry that provokes a fractious response from the fandom. Either you can find something to love about it, or it's the worst of the pre-"Prometheus" canon era. Maybe both. With an eccentric cinematic style, Brad Dourif giving full Dourif, Ron Perlman Ron Perlman-ing, and Sigourney Weaver having fun with her Ripley clone persona, we're in the former camp. But Ryder's delight came with a heavy downside. The actress has a lifelong fear of drowning, and her first day of filming turned into a nightmare. Production would begin with the crew's desperate escape through a flooded canteen.
The underwater rush through Xenomoph-infested waters is one of the film's best sequences, and like nearly every great water scene ever filmed, it was hell to create. Using a modified sound stage tank on the 20th Century Fox lot, the scene not only took days to pull off, but it turned into a risky endeavor, too. While Weaver arrived with little diving training, due to previous obligations, and Perlman struck his head on a sprinkler, it was Ryder who got all the lingering psychological damage. The set-up for the tank scene gave Ryder a panic attack on her first day of work. And she ended up nearly drowning, again, during those first weeks of filming.
Kristen Stewart didn't want to go Underwater
Kristen Stewart could brunch with Winona Ryder and talk watery turkey. Cast as the lead in the underrated eldritch horror film "Underwater," Stewart isn't a fan of deep dives, either. Assuming that the bulk of the underwater segments was going to be created using "Aquaman"-style CGI, Stewart wasn't thrilled to discover that this was intended to be a heavily practical production, in addition to CGI, with bulky diving suits and waterlogged sets. It also didn't help that what she wore underneath the suits was, well, not a whole lot.
While the camera frame usually avoids an obvious male gaze whenever the deep sea tech Norah (Stewart) is in her Ellen Ripley-esque skivvies, it's not an upgrade from the scuba suit the character was originally meant to wear. Yet Stewart sells her role with a harsh but kind competency, personally taking on Cthulhu as well as any doomed Lovecraftian protagonist could. It probably doesn't make up for an arm injury the heavy suits gave her, or the reawakening of her phobia about the water, but the result is one of our favorite journeys into the unexplored explored depths of cosmic horror.
Jennifer Lawrence's X-Men costume held no Mystique for her
Jennifer Lawrence is a polarizing Internet figure, mostly for being a vocal feminist, and partially for being a woman. But speaking up about the discomfort and medical risk she put up with when wearing the Mystique body paint costume for the "X-Men" franchise was too much for some fans, who had no interest in learning about the health risks and long-term damage these paints can cause. Only 20 when she took on the role of the shape-shifting mutant, Lawrence, by the time of "Apocalypse" began to voice her concerns about the potential toxin damage.
It's not a new phenomenon. 1939's"The Wizard of Oz" brought the dangers of body paint to light twice, once literally as the Witch (Margaret Hamilton) suffered severe burns when her flammable green makeup caught fire, and again, as the original Tin Man, Buddy Ebsen, had to be hospitalized and removed from the movie because aluminum dust cut off his oxygen. Today, at the bare minimum, movie body paint is on for hours at a time, building allergic reactions, creating potentially scarring rashes, and loaded with chemicals from unknown sources. Mystique's original paint took eight hours to apply to Lawrence's body. Then there was a full day's filming, and to finish it off, further skin irritation and dehydration as alcohol-based removers peeled the mutant away. Leave Lawrence alone. That stuff sucks.
Aliens had a toxic work environment — literally
"Aliens" put a ton of work into creating military camaraderie between much of its cast and building sets that looked like things these roughnecks worked with. That meant hard-ridden vehicles and well-used weaponry, and to realize that, effects crews employed various tricks to make things look aged. Unfortunately, some of those tricks involved chemicals. In the case of the Marines' APC — the armored carrier that Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) drives into the LV426 facility in a desperate rescue — those aging chemicals yielded a dangerous situation for some of the actors involved.
It's the scene where Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) has to let Drake (Mark Rolston) go. The APC rescue is hairy, and Hudson (Bill Paxton), Hicks (Michael Biehn), and Vasquez are pulling themselves into the vehicle as Drake's M240 Incinerator goes off. Those were real flames on the set, and the panic inside the APC was also real. The fire turned the aging chemical used inside the vehicle into an asphyxiating gas, causing Paxton, Biehn, and Goldstein to panic. James Cameron loved the take too much to pass it up, sealing the actors' genuine terror into the final cut. Just between embracing this nightmare, and the hellhole of "The Abyss," are you okay, Mr. Cameron?
Malcolm McDowell's biggest scene didn't go like Clockwork
"A Clockwork Orange" boasts several iconic set pieces, like the psychedelic luxury of the milk bar, and the moment of savage "Singin' in the Rain" brutality. But it may be the "redeeming" of Alex (Malcolm McDowell) that haunts our dreams the most. Sent at last to detention for attacking someone that mattered to the powers that be, Alex undergoes the Ludovico Technique, a Pavlovian experimental treatment to fix his violent nature. It includes terrible hours of being strapped into a chair, his eyes pinned open as a visual and audio assault attempts to rewrite his responses.
To film this sequence, Stanley Kubrick had McDowell strapped into a chair with his eyes pinned open. No camera trickery; they just did the thing. The only saving grace was that the doctor in the scene, applying anesthetizing eye drops to Alex's eyes, was an actual licensed doctor applying actual anesthetizing eye drops. Nonetheless, McDowell didn't have his cornea painfully scratched up once, as is famously believed. No, he had his eyeballs scratched twice, as Kubrick wheedled McDowell into a close-up shot a week later.
Peter Weller is, unfortunately, RoboCop
Peter Weller took some well-intentioned flack on the set in the early days of filming "RoboCop" for his insistence on applying Method acting to his role as the sacrificial lamb turned cyborg cop, Alex Murphy. He'd also worked for weeks on perfecting a flowing, robotic style of movement that he intended to apply to the suit once it was on. But that wasn't what made Weller throw up his hands and decide to simply do his best once he finally saw the iconic costume he'd be wearing. The painted polyurethane and latex suit was stiff, incredibly heavy, and so hot that Weller began to lose a dangerous amount of water weight every day of filming.
The first weeks Weller spent inside the suit were also a form of endurance torture, as it took upwards of eight to 10 hours to clamp Weller inside the restricting armor until the effects team had a routine down. The helmet and visor also restricted Weller's sight, turning any scene with a staircase into a potential minefield. Yet the result is as iconic as the costume. Weller returned for "RoboCop 2." His only problem with his encore wasn't the suit, shockingly enough — he was cynical about the initial script, but a rewrite from Walon Green, who'd co-written "The Wild Bunch" with Sam Peckinpah, connected to Weller's belief that there was more to say about Murphy.
The Alien chestburster scared almost the entire cast
There's one famous anecdote from the filming of Ridley Scott's "Alien" so gruesome and shocking that, after a while, it starts to sound made up. It's not. The birth of the chestburster, an ultimate nightmare sequence if ever there were one, went down exactly as advertised. The only member of the cast with even a glimpse of what was about to happen was John Hurt, as the first victim, Kane.
The script only indicated an emergence. As the rest of the cast enjoyed a relaxing morning, Hurt was on set being pasted into the table, while a false chest cavity was filled with fresh cuts of meat and shellfish from a local vendor. When the cast was brought up to begin filming, they were bemused by a film crew in raincoats, with their cameras shielded by plastic, but didn't make the connection. A set-up shot with a small amount of puppeteering pulled real curiosity out of the cast, and the way it all turns to disgust and horror is totally genuine. According to a feature in Empire, now available only via snippets from The Independent Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) was hosed with a jet of real blood. Understandably, she passed out. Yaphet Kotto locked himself in his room. Whatever the case, the result was pure movie history.