Sometimes actors get out of hand and it leads to a pleasant surprise. In the surreal comedy Being John Malkovich, someone threw a can at John Malkovich’s head and shouts “Hey, Malkovich! Think fast!” The scene panned out perfectly because according to director Spike Jonze, the director of the film, this moment wasn’t at all in the script and actually happened because some extras got drunk got overboard.
The extras dropped the F-Bomb and also hurt Malkovich’s head pretty bad. But it was all in the name of art, so they were happy with the outcome and kept it in the final cut. The American fantasy comedy-drama was packed with other talented actors including John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and Charlie Sheen.
Deliverance
In this movie, things quickly turn dark as a group of friends travel in the wilderness and are chased by a gang of hillbillies. When one of the attackers yells the line “squeal like a pig” and in turn, starts to squeal, this was entirely made up on the spot by the actor. Several people have received credit for the phrase. Ned Beatty claims that he thought of it while he and McKinney were improvising the scene.
The director of the film, John Boorman, however, said that the line was used because the studio wanted the scene to be filmed in two ways: one for the movie release and one which would be appropriate for television. Boorman did not want to do that so he decided that the phrase "squeal like a pig", suggested by Rabun County liaison Frank Rickman, was a good substitution for the original lines in the script.
Good Will Hunting
While Ben Affleck and Matt Damon may have been recognized as the writers of this script, it was the late Robin Williams who created the most memorable line of the film as psychiatrist Sean Maguire. In one of the last scenes, he reads a letter that Damon’s character wrote to him.
One of the lines was “I gotta see about a girl.” He added in “son of a b*tch. He stole my line.” Unsurprisingly, the film received nominations for nine Academy Awards and won two of them; one for Best Supporting Actor for Williams and one for Best Original Screenplay for Affleck and Damon.
The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects tells the story of the interrogation of Roger "Verbal" Kint, a small-time con man, who is one of two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. Through various flashbacks and narration, Kint shares with the interrogator an elaborate series of events that led him and his criminal companions to the boat, and of a perplexing crime lord—known as Keyser Söze—who controlled them.
This movie has some major twists, so it was important for actors to stick to the script. However, in the line-up scene, actors were given the go-to to act as they wished. This made way for a hilarious scene and improv, during which one character even passed gas. Also in the scene, Benicio Del Toro slurred his words and the cop requested from him, “in English please.”
Goodfellas
This is one of the most popular gangster movies ever with great actors. Amongst the cast are Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta. It was Pesci who stole the show when his character Tommy got extremely defensive after being referred to as a “funny guy.” The improvised line “Do I amuse you?” has since become a classic. The line is based on an actual event that Pesci witnessed.
According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals where director Scorsese allowed the actors to do whatever they wanted. He made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines the actors came up with that he liked best, and put them into a revised script that the cast worked from.