The scene Wesley Snipes wouldn’t open his eyes for: “Yeah, that was a bit tricky”
There have been many bizarre and exaggerated feuds between Hollywood stars over the years, from the alleged fallout between Gwyneth Paltrow and Winona Ryder to the bitter arguments between Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy. In a business that revolves around inter-personal relationships and connections, it comes as no surprise that the friends (and enemies) you make in the business can define your career, with many feuds becoming embedded in Hollywood history and haunting the people involved.
Naturally, when working in such a high-pressure environment and with millions of dollars at stake, tensions will sometimes run high and lead to strained interactions on set, but this resulted in a rather strange rumour after the release of Blade: Trinity, with stories going around about the clashing between Wesley Snipes and the director.
Snipes is known for performances in cult classic films like White Men Can’t Jump, Deadpool and Wolverine and Demolition Man, becoming associated with the action genre and his expertise in the martial arts. Over the years, he often reprised the character of Blade, who first appeared in the 1998 film of the same name, playing a man who is half vampire and half mortal and becomes intent on protecting an army of underground vampires.
However, this series was also known for the many dramas happening behind the scenes, with one infamous rumour about the strained relationship between Snipes and director David S. Goyer while shooting Blade: Trinity.
At the time, many stories were circulating that Goyer and Snipes had a monumental fallout during production, with Goyer writing all of the Blade movies but only directing the 2004 film, which apparently the actor wasn’t happy with. However, as a result of this, a rumour circulated that Snipes refused to open his eyes for the scene inside the morgue, forcing the filmmakers to digitally open his eyes using CGI. It sounds like a petty and extreme prank over an on-set disagreement, but the story became legendary when discussing the antics behind the film.
However, the director has disputed this story over the years, and when asked about it he said, “It might be when he’s in the morgue and he has to open his eyes. Yeah, that was a bit tricky because I don’t even recall whether Wesley was still on the show at that point. He had a double, if I’m remembering this correctly ― and it’s been a while. He had a double who looked very very much like him, and we had to shoot with late ideas. We ended up doing them sometimes with the double.”
Snipes has also refuted his alleged intentions behind this refusal, saying that it was a choice in line with the character, believing that if he couldn’t see the taxman, then the taxman couldn’t see him. However, the rumoured story is so strangely specific that it feels hard to imagine anyone could have fabricated it, so perhaps there is more truth to the incident than either party wants to let people believe. We all do petty things to people who irritate us, but this is a new level of Hollywood pettiness that is perhaps taking the feud a notch too far.
