Five famously improvised scenes that weren’t improvised at all
People love to throw around facts that they’ve never actually checked to be true, like whether an actor actually improvised a classic line or not. In some cases, there are actors who go with their gut instincts and say something that’s not in the script, like Jack Nicholson, who took everyone off guard when he started quoting Johnny Carson during that terrifying scene in The Shining. Meanwhile, Robin Williams did the same when he accidentally created a quotable moment in the form of “Son of a bitch. He stole my line,” in Good Will Hunting.
Yet, there are some instances where rumours of improvised lines are actually just that – rumours. And in many circumstances, the amount of improvisation is woefully exaggerated, or just not true at all.
We all marvel at the impressive moments of improvisation that have supposedly come from films like Jaws and Titanic, but we’re here to take off the blindfold and reveal the harsh truth. There are often cases when an actor will contribute an idea or a line that is worked into the script, but in the instances listed below, none of these lines were actually improvised on the spot.
While it’s nice to pretend they were, the truth is, cinema features a lot of fabrication, and it’s often much more enticing to try and have people believe that a classic line was the result of in-the-moment genius from an actor. Sadly, we’re here to burst that bubble with five scenes that weren’t actually improvised.
Five famously improvised scenes that weren’t improvised at all:
Walking stick – ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ (Mel Stuart, 1971)
While Tim Burton’s take on Roald Dahl’s classic tale was popular in the 2000s in the form of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the version featuring Gene Wilder, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, is often crowned the superior interpretation. It’s here that we see one of the actor’s greatest performances as the eccentric chocolatier, immediately suggesting that audiences should be suspicious of his larger-than-life character by way of a strange introduction.
He hobbles out to meet the crowd with a walking stick, positioning himself as an old and disabled man, yet once he reaches the end of his red carpet, he pretends to fall before rolling on the floor, clearly able to move. Wilder didn’t actually improvise this bizarre act in the moment as many claim – it was planned all along.
“I’m the king of the world” – ‘Titanic’ (James Cameron, 1997)
Whether you love or hate Titanic – the epic disaster love story that has plagued the Christmas period’s television listings for several decades now – it’s got many iconic moments. “Draw me like one of your French girls” is a commonly quoted line, while the moment when Rose lets Jack go is also unforgettable, that’s unless you can’t remember the scene properly for all the tears in your eyes. However, there is another widely referenced moment that people love to claim as an improvised line, but that wasn’t the case.
When Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack shouts “I’m the king of the world” on the edge of the ship, you might’ve been under the impression that the actor spontaneously said it. In reality, director James Cameron conjured up the line during filming and asked DiCaprio to say it, and that was that.
Drill sergeant insults – ‘Full Metal Jacket’ (Stanley Kubrick, 1987)
While Full Metal Jacket is often regarded by fans of Stanley Kubrick as one of his weaker films, it’s still great – largely because of the unforgettable performance given by R Lee Ermey. As the drill sergeant Gunnery Sergeant L Hartman, he is absolutely terrifying, hurling the most vicious and offensive insults at his men that you can imagine.
It’s often said that this scene in which he screams in the faces of all of the men – not holding back on matters that are both personal and bigoted – was improvised, something aided by the fact that Ermey really was a drill sergeant during the Vietnam War. Yet, much of the scene was actually scripted, with only some of it standing as improvisation. So, while Ermey did bring his real experience to the role, he certainly wasn’t responsible for all of those brutal lines.
“Funny how?” – ‘Goodfellas’ (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Martin Scorsese’s classic gangster flick Goodfellas is one of the most acclaimed movies of all time, and one of its most quoted lines is “Funny how?”, delivered by Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito. It’s a fantastic scene, with the character making his table laugh before doing a complete 180 switch around when Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill tells him he’s funny.
“I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?,” he says, inciting fear into his companions.
Fans claim that Pesci improvised the iconic line during filming, but it didn’t exactly go down like that. Pesci and Liotta improvised the scene before filming began, which led Scorsese to take the dialogue and work it into the script before shooting officially commenced. Then, the scene was shot several times with the same lines delivered with each take.
“Bigger boat” – ‘Jaws’ (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
Hollywood was never the same again when Steven Spielberg released Jaws in 1975, officially ushering in the era of the summer blockbuster. Single-handedly giving people a fear of sharks and ruining a summer of beach attendance, the film became a classic, memorable for lines like “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” which is said by Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody.
The scene is iconic, and it’s one of the most commonly cited ‘improvised lines’ in movie history because it’s simply so perfect in the context of the doom-filled scene. But was it actually improvised? It turns out, Scheider didn’t actually come up with the line, which is something the crew would often say to each other as a joke.
