The five weirdest pranks the Coen brothers have played on their cast and crew
Great comedy is rarely made in a chaotic environment. A carefree production usually leads to movies like 2015’s Mortdecai, and we can all agree that such films should never see the light of day. The Coen Brothers are known for their offbeat characters and madcap plots, but they are also known for making good movies, so you’d think that they’d run a pretty tight ship.
While this might be true for most of a film’s production, there is no getting around the fact that this definition of a dynamic duo loves pranks. They don’t just like small, opportunistic pranks either. They’re willing to put the work in, coordinating co-conspirators, prepping various props, and keeping the secret until the big reveal.
How, you might be wondering, could this possibly be conducive to a smoothly running film production involving hundreds of people – including A-list celebrities – multiple departments, and countless moving parts? Well, I do not have the answer to that one, but what is clear is that the people on whom these pranks are pulled seem to find it all pretty hilarious and aren’t discouraged from working with the brothers again.
Over the years, the Coens have levelled their singular sense of workplace humour at Jeff Bridges (multiple times), their longtime cinematographer Roger Deakins (again, more than once), and Josh Brolin, to name a few. Sadly, these antics do not make it onto the screen, so we may as well celebrate them here.
The bring-your-family-to-work day from hell
It’s only fitting that in a movie about a laid back, peace-loving slacker who gets misidentified as a porn mogul, the Coen Brothers would find an opportunity to turn a perfectly innocent on-set visit into a deeply uncomfortable one. The Big Lebowski follows the misadventures of Jeff Bridge’s Lebowski, aka, The Dude, who agrees to help rescue the wife of the actual porn mogul with whom he’s been confused. Mostly, though, it’s about bowling.
There are several dream sequences in the movie. In one of them, a line of chorus girls wearing bowling pin headdresses dances in a Busby Berkeley-style musical number. On the day that part of the sequence was scheduled to be filmed, Bridges decided that it would be a great opportunity to bring his wife and young daughters to the set. What he didn’t account for was the irreverence of his directors.
When he and his family turned up to set that day, he discovered that the Coens had moved the schedule around so that the section of the dream they were shooting was the one in which The Dude floats down a bowling lane looking up the skirts of the line of chorus girls. “I made a terrible error that day,” Bridges said when he recounted the moment to Conan O’Brien years later. To be fair to him, the error he mentions wasn’t the fact that he got the days wrong but the fact that he trusted his directors.
Josh Brolin’s sound repertoire
Most of the Coens’ on-set jokes only live on in the memory of those who were present to witness them, but one of them was not captured on camera but incorporated into the movie. No Country for Old Men is often considered to be the duo’s masterpiece, a darkly comedic modern western featuring one of cinema’s creepiest villains. It’s the Coens’ only film to have won the ‘Best Picture’ Oscar, but as usual, the set was far from serious.
In one scene, Josh Brolin’s character comes upon a bag full of money next to a dead body. As any self-respecting actor would, Brolin felt that he should have some type of reaction to the discovery. The scene had no dialogue, so the star suggested that he make a small grunting sound. The directors appeared to be intrigued, so they asked him for more options. He offered a ‘Huh,’ a ‘Hm,’ and a ‘Hmmm.’ They asked for a few more, waited for him to produce several additional evocative yet noncommittal sounds, and then told him to go with the second one.
“So, I did the second one,” Brolin said, “And then every time we screened the movie, I always knew where Ethan was in the theatre because every time that moment happened, he would burst out laughing. Was it a joke, or did it help the movie and the scene? We’ll never know.” Knowing the Coens, it was almost certainly the former.
Roger Deakins day
Roger Deakins is one of the most respected cinematographers of all time. He’s been working in the business since the ‘70s and has helped shape everything from The Shawshank Redemption to Skyfall. He’s been the Coens’ preferred cinematographer since Barton Fink in 1991 and has therefore had to put up with plenty of their antics.
On more than one occasion, he has been the subject of their pranks. During the production of one of their collaborations, the Coens specified that everyone had to come to work dressed in the distinctive uniform that the cinematographer wears everyday without fail – jeans, a white shirt, and farmhand boots. The latter bit of kit was something he found during the filming of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but the crew did their best to mimic the complete ensemble.
In a true show of single-minded dedication to his craft, Deakins was none the wiser to the prank. In fact, it took him until the end of the day to notice what was going on, which probably made everyone feel a bit deflated. For once, the joke was on the Coens.
Pubic hair
Remember how Jeff Bridges made the grave error of telling the Coens that he’d be bringing his wife and young kids to the set of The Big Lebowski and how they used that kernel of knowledge to make it a deeply uncomfortable visit? Well, switching the scenes wasn’t the extent of their pranks that day. Not only did they change the schedule so that Bridges would be forced to spend the day looking up women’s skirts instead of innocently dancing on a beautifully patterned dance floor, but they also gave him something unexpected to look at.
“As I float through [the row of women’s legs] and turn and look up a dress,” Bridges recalled, “I see this big – well, tufts of hair coming out everywhere – and it’s the same under the next girl’s skirt.” It turned out that the directors and the dancers had coordinated with the wardrobe department to wear wigs under their underwear that were only visible from below. “That’s why I have that weird smile on my face in the picture,” the actor explained. Sure enough, The Dude does have an unusual expression in the scene – something between horror and glee.
The thank-you gift that turned into a porno novel
Poor Roger Deakins. It doesn’t matter how many Oscars you win or how professional you are, some directors will never let you catch a break. In this particular case, Ethan Coen used the cinematographer as an unwitting co-conspirator to play a prank on his brother, Joel.
After completing an unspecified film, Deakins and his wife, James, bought a thank-you gift for Joel Coen and his wife, Frances McDormand. It was a book of artwork wrapped in paper along with a card. Before it found its way to the intended recipients, Ethan Coen snagged it, replaced the art book with a used porno novel, and left the Deakins’ card intact – “We thought you would like this!”
Not surprisingly, the cinematographer found that his interactions with Joel Coen and McDormand were unusually awkward after that, at least until the truth was uncovered. Somehow, Deakins refrained from firing the directors as collaborators on the spot.
