15 Wild Secrets About Classic Movies Their Stars Spilled Years After They Came Out

1. Anthony Michael Hall confessed that — when he was 14 years old and playing Rusty in 1983's Vacation — he tried to sneak on set to watch his on-screen mom Beverly D'Angelo film her nude scene.

2. Courtney Love claimed that she was originally cast in David Fincher's 1999 classic Fight Club as Marla Singer (the role eventually played by Helena Bonham Carter), but the film's star, Brad Pitt, got her fired because she wouldn't give him permission to play her late husband (and Nirvana frontman) Kurt Cobain in a movie.

3. Barry Keoghan revealed that the shocking scene in Saltburn where his character, Oliver, basically makes love to the soil around his lover Felix's grave, was improvised.

Asked about the improvised elements of the film on the red carpet of the 2024 Golden Globes, Keoghan joked that they'd improvised "all the sick parts." He then went on to discuss the shocking grave sex scene, which he said was improvised in collaboration with director Emerald Fennell. 

About that scene, he said, “I wanted to see what Oliver would do next. I wanted to see what the next level of obsession was. And by that [I mean], I just wanted the camera to roll. Not to kind of preempt it or rehearse it and what happened, happened. It was one take, and I think it was right. It moved the story forward.” 

4. Kate Winslet "burst a bubble" for people by speaking candidly about the making of the famous door scene in Titanic, saying that — while it looked like they were out on the ocean — it was filmed in a "waist-high" tank.

Dishing the deets on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Winslet said, "It was waist-height, that tank. So first of all, I was regularly like, ‘Ugh, can I just go for a pee,’ and then I’d get up, get off the door, walk to the edge of the tank that was sort of 20 feet away, and I’d literally have to fling my leg over and climb out the tank and go for a pee and then come back and crawl on the door again.”

She wryly added, “It’s terrible to admit these things… Leo is, I’m afraid, kneeling down on the bottom of the tank. I shouldn’t be saying any of these things. James Cameron’s gonna be ringing me like, ‘Why are you telling them all that?’" 

5. Saoirse Ronan revealed that she and Timothée Chalamet were supposed to make cameo appearances in the global smash Barbie, but had to bow out when their schedules couldn't make it work.

The news makes sense, considering that both Ronan and Chalamet have been frequent collaborators of Barbie director Greta Gerwig. 

Ronan wasn't sure of what role Chalamet would've played in the film, but she confirmed to Variety, "I was definitely going to be a Weird Barbie. I don’t know how to take that. I would have been with Kate McKinnon, so that would have been nice. I had a scene but didn’t ever get to do it, and it wasn’t in the movie." She added, "I think I’d be the strange girl who talked to herself and always had her pet dog with her and always talked to the dog and wouldn’t look at anyone."

6. Tim Roth confessed that Quentin Tarantino told him what was in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction — something which movie fans have wondered about and debated for years.

Speaking to Variety for the film's 30th anniversary, Roth said that because his character would know what was in the suitcase, Tarantino revealed to him the suitcase's secret contents. "But," Roth added, "Quentin asked me not to mention it." (Feel free to yell, "God damn it!" and kick a chair, reader.)

Tarantino did tell Roth what he could say to people who asked what was inside, but it's more of a cheeky and literal answer than a satisfying one: "I remember him saying that the answer if they ask you was, 'A battery and a lamp.'"

7. Andrew Garfield admitted that he was surprised to get a screen test for the title role in 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man — thinking he was way too old — and went into the test with an "I don't give a fuck" attitude.

Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Garfield said, “I did the first audition and thought that’s that. I’m too old. I felt I was too told. Just generally I was like, I am 25 or 26 and playing a high schooler. I know I got good genes and all, but I don’t know. That’s not going my way. I was surprised to be given an opportunity to screen test.”

For the screen test, Garfield took the advice of his acting coach Greta Seacat who said “'You have to treat this screen test as if you’re making a short film with all your high school friends.' That allowed me to go 'Fuck it.' Keep the channel open. Be free. This doesn’t matter. Treat this like it doesn’t fucking matter. That’s when whatever talent you do have can just be there. You’re a child again. You’re emotionally available and you’re not tight and trying to get it right. I remember that feeling of ‘I don’t give a fuck.'”

Garfield ended up playing the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man, its 2014 sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.

8. Oprah Winfrey may have earned an Academy Award nomination for playing Sofia in Steven Spielberg's 1985 film The Color Purple, but as she dished to Essence magazine, she was only paid $35,000 for the role.

Winfrey wasn't too bothered by the modest pay day, though. Just being in the film was special. She said, “I can’t even begin to tell you what it means to me — a person who wanted nothing more in my life than to be in The Color Purple... They were only offering $35,000 to be in this film, and it is the best $35,000 I ever earned. It changed everything and taught me so much. It is God moving through my life.”

9. Simon Pegg candidly discussed becoming depressed while filming 2006's Mission: Impossible III, and how he turned to alcohol to dull the pain, something he kept hidden from the cast and crew of the production.

Pegg — who first dealt with depression as a teenager — told BBC’s Desert Island Discs that he became good at hiding his alcoholism, saying, “You learn how to do it without anyone noticing because it takes over. It wants to sustain itself and it will do everything it can to not be stopped. But eventually it just gets to a point when it can’t be hidden, and that’s when, thankfully, I was able to pull out of the dive.”

The birth of Pegg's daughter Matilda in 2009 inspired Pegg to stop drinking, and he's now in recovery. 

10. Keanu Reeves said that while filming the 1994 action classic Speed, the bus actually crashed into several real cars, eliciting screams from his costars and surprising Reeves, who said he was "under informed" about the production's plans.

Speaking at a 30th-anniversary screening with director Jan de Bont and costar Sandra Bullock, Reeves asked Bullock, “Don’t you remember that day on the bus, though? When we were crashing through all the cars on the street? I remember we were a little under-informed. We were all on the bus and then we were driving down by San Diego or something. We were set by the ocean, and all of a sudden, we’re actually hitting cars. Boom! Boom! Everyone on their bus lost their mind. People were screaming.”

Bullock — who got her bus driver's license for the film despite never actually driving onscreen — added, “The fun part was that I was at the helm of the bus, but in the back, there was someone driving along the roof. Someone was driving, and I was being careened into whatever Jan felt I needed to smash into.” 

11. Zoe Saldaña absolutely hated filming Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and says the bad experience almost made her "tip overboard."

Speaking at a Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival, Saldaña said the film's cast and crew were "super marvelous" 99% of time. "But if the studio and the producers and the director, they're not leading with kindness and awareness and consideration, then that big of a production can become a really bad experience and you may tip overboard. And I kind of did." As a result, Saldaña decided not to return to the franchise for any further installments.

There was a happy ending — of sorts. Saldaña told Entertainment Weekly, "Years later, I was able to meet with Jerry Bruckheimer (the film's producer), who apologized that I had that experience 'cause he really wants everyone to have a good experience on his projects," she said. "That really moved me — the fact that he remembered that I had mentioned that during press, I guess, or an engagement I had done years before and that he felt compelled to bring it up and to take accountability."

12. Al Pacino recently recalled how he was George Lucas's original choice to play Han Solo in Star Wars, but turned it down despite being offered "so much money."

Speaking at the 92nd Street Y, Pacino dished, “I turned down Star Wars. When I first came up, I was the new kid on the block, you know what happens when you first become famous. It’s like, ‘Give it to Al.’ They’d give me Queen Elizabeth to play."

Pacino continued, "They gave me a script called Star Wars. … They offered me so much money. I don’t understand it. I read it. … So I said I couldn’t do it. I gave Harrison Ford a career.”

13. Halle Berry admitted that she always thought the screenplay for 2004's critically-drubbed Catwoman was a little "soft." (The superhero film has a woeful 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.)

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly on the film's 20th anniversary, Berry said, “I always thought the idea of Catwoman saving women from a face cream felt a bit soft. All the other superheroes save the world; they don’t just save women from cracked faces. I always knew that was a soft superhero plight, but at that time in my career, I didn’t have the agency I have today or belief that I could challenge that, so I went along with it.”

Berry added, though, that she didn't love the backlash she and the film received. “Being a Black woman, I’m used to carrying negativity on my back, fighting, being a fish swimming upstream by myself. I’m used to defying stereotypes and making a way out of no way... It didn’t derail me because I’ve fought as a Black woman my whole life. A little bad publicity about a movie? I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t going to stop my world or derail me from doing what I love to do.”

14. Tom Cruise admitted to being so moved by getting to work with old friend Val Kilmer in Top Gun: Maverick that he cried.

Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Cruise said of their on-screen reunion, "That was pretty emotional, I’ve known Val for decades. For him to come back and play that character…he’s such a powerful actor that he instantly became that character again…you’re looking at Iceman.”

It was a rare onscreen appearance for Kilmer, who was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 and now has difficulty speaking due to a tracheostomy.

“I was crying, I got emotional,” Cruise continued.

15. Lastly, Mrs. Doubtfire director Chris Columbus dispelled rumors that there was an unreleased NC-17 version of the family classic, but revealed that star Robin Williams did so much improvising — often venturing into inappropriate territory — that he could easily make an R-rated cut.

"There was a deal between Robin and myself, which was, he'll do one or two, three scripted takes," Columbus told Entertainment Weekly. "And then he would say, 'Then let me play.' And we would basically go on anywhere between 15 to 22 takes, I think 22 being the most I remember. He would sometimes go into territory that wouldn't be appropriate for a PG-13 movie, but certainly appropriate and hilariously funny for an R-rated film."

Could an R-rated version ever be released? "I would be open to maybe doing a documentary about the making of the film, and enabling people to see certain scenes re-edited in an R-rated version," Columbus said. "The problem is, I don't recall most of it. I only know what's in the movie at this point because it's been a long time. But I do remember it was outrageously funny material."