Cinema

Shoots that went off the rails, effects held together with tape, improvised lines: cinema seen from backstage rather than from the screen.

381 anecdotes, most recent first.
Highlights

Anne Hathaway auditioned for the wrong role in The Dark Knight Rises

Anne Hathaway auditioned for The Dark Knight Rises without knowing the exact nature of her character. Believing she was applying to play Harley Quinn, she eventually landed the role of Catwoman. She then followed intensive martial arts training for this Christopher Nolan film released in 2012.

2026-07-23

Brad Pitt had his teeth chipped for Fight Club

Brad Pitt had small pieces of his front teeth removed to play Tyler Durden in the movie Fight Club. The actor felt that his character should not have perfect teeth during the filming. The removed pieces were then reimplanted once the filming was finished in 1998.

2026-02-21

The swamp planet of Dagobah was filmed in a swimming pool

The scene of the dragon-snake attack on Dagobah is the only one on the swamp planet to have been filmed outside the studios. It was thus produced in the personal swimming pool of George Lucas. The other shots required the mobilization of about one hundred workers at the Elstree studios.

2025-11-29

In Arthurian romances, a single dwarf replaces all servants

The Arthurian cycle features many supernatural dwarfs who often serve as anonymous servants for chores. These creatures generally act at night without ever feeling the need to sleep. In the novel Yder, a single one of these characters thus replaces the entire staff of a castle.

2026-10-15

The rake scene in The Simpsons is filler

Cape Feare is an episode of the animated series The Simpsons that experienced difficulties reaching its standard half-hour duration. The production team then had to inflate certain sequences to extend the broadcast format. Sideshow Bob suffers repeated blows from rake handles by stepping on them, becoming one of the most famous segments of the program.

2026-10-13

The Pipintu are dwarves without an anus

The Pipintu are singular dwarves mentioned in the work The Jealous Potter. This improbable anatomical peculiarity is attributed to them by the author Claude Lévi-Strauss. This work addresses various mythological figures throughout the world.

2026-10-12

Thierry Lhermitte popularized the patator on television

The patator is a homemade cannon that propels projectiles using an inflammable spray. Thierry Lhermitte performed a successful demonstration of this instrument on November 5, 1998, in front of Alain Chabat. This appearance on La Grosse Émission on the channel Comédie! popularized the object in France.

2026-10-12

Stephen King finally produces a Carrie adaptation

Stephen King participates in an adaptation of his first novel as an executive producer. This collaboration occurs during the development of a television series ordered in April 2025. The author was thus consulted by Mike Flanagan during the production of this project for Prime Video.

2026-10-11

Western series saved Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. is a historic film studio that turned to television to compensate for its financial losses. In 1954, the studio produced popular westerns such as Cheyenne, Maverick, Bronco or Colt 45. These programs met with great success among viewers and made it possible to cover the deficit generated by the film productions of the time.

2026-10-11

Gandhi's version of his turban story was false

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi claimed in his 1927 Autobiography that he left a courtroom in 1893 after a magistrate ordered him to remove his turban. The archives of the newspaper The Natal Mercury recount a different scene where he was simply asked to present his lawyer's credentials. Authors such as N. Sanghavi, G. B. Singh and T. Watson have thus pointed out that this episode did not constitute a racial incident at the time.

2026-10-11

Shahrukh Khan signed for a film without reading the script

In 1998, the Indian actor Shahrukh Khan agreed to star in the first film by director Karan Johar, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Out of simple friendship, he committed himself before even having read the script. This feature film became a huge commercial success, distributed both in India and abroad.

2026-10-11

The King of Bollywood started by playing psychopaths

Shahrukh Khan is an essential star of Indian cinema whose fame has crossed borders since his debut in 1992. He won over the public by embodying antiheroes with psychotic tendencies in feature films like Baazigar, Darr or Anjaam. This artistic boldness allowed him to arouse the sympathy of viewers where the usual codes forbade it.

2026-10-11

The Simpsons aliens are inspired by a comic book

Kang and Kodos are two fictional aliens from the animated series The Simpsons. Their first sketches were imagined by the writers Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky. Their final design was then directly inspired by the cover of an issue of EC Comics.

2026-10-11

Jan Garbarek refuses to play jazz standards

Jan Garbarek is a saxophonist who refuses to play a single jazz standard. He favors personal compositions or traditional songs, believing that these standards are not his own. His style thus moves away from traditional American jazz to get closer to a European sensibility focused on melody and silence.

2026-10-11

Dunes threaten the Mos Espa set

The Mos Espa site is a famous filming location for the Star Wars saga. Scientists use its position to calculate the movement speed of the surrounding dunes. The area is thus gradually being buried by sand, which causes significant damage despite the efforts of fans and tourism.

2026-10-11

The character of Falstaff is inspired by the playwright Robert Greene

Falstaff is a theatrical character whose main model presents astonishing parallels with the playwright Robert Greene. The latter frequented taverns, accumulated debts and displayed an ambiguous social position, while lamenting through brief repentances. The academic Stephen Greenblatt highlighted these similarities, going as far as the nickname Monsieur Remords that Shakespeare attributed to his hero.

2026-10-11

Darcy's first marriage proposal is partially reported

Fitzwilliam Darcy is the novel character who makes a clumsy and arrogant marriage proposal to Elizabeth at Rosings Park. The reader only reads the opening sentence of this declaration, because the text immediately shifts to indirect speech. This technique highlights the anger and resentment of Elizabeth, who has just learned of Darcy's harmful role in the separation of Bingley and her sister Jane.

2026-10-11

Homer lost against Pinky and the Brain

In 1996, the episode Treehouse of Horror VI was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program. The team believed that the three-dimensional animated sequence named Homer3 would win all the awards. Finally, the episode lost the prize to Pinky and the Brain.

2026-10-11

Jacky in the Kingdom of Women is inspired by Cinderella

Jacky in the Kingdom of Women is a comedy that transposes the story of Cinderella into an inverted universe. The main characters take up the figures of the tale, like Jacky who embodies the hero at the feet of the stepmother or the Colonel who plays the role of the prince. According to director Riad Sattouf, the main hero maintains an attitude of a collaborator despite the upheavals of the regime.

2026-10-11

She had her teeth removed for a role

Kinuyo Tanaka is a major actress of the golden age of Japanese cinema. In 1958, she played the role of a seventy-year-old woman in the film The Ballad of Narayama. Only forty-eight years old at the time of filming, she agreed to have four dental implants removed to perfect her character, subsequently receiving the best actress of the year award from the newspaper Kinema Junpō.

2026-10-11

Warner studio surpassed Disney

Leon Schlesinger's studio surpassed Disney studios in 1942 to become the most well-known producer of animated short films in the United States. This success occurred after Tex Avery launched Porky Pig in 1936, followed by Daffy Duck in 1937 and Bugs Bunny in 1940. In 1944, Jack Warner bought the animation department to found Warner Bros. Cartoons.

2026-10-10

Tatooine hosts too many events for a desert planet

Tatooine is a desert planet in the Star Wars universe that hosts a surprising number of crucial events in the saga. According to critic Ian Goodwillie, the probability is infinitesimal for such an isolated world to concentrate so many destinies and inhabitants. It is indeed there that Anakin Skywalker is born, that Maul dies, that Jabba the Hutt resides and that Luke Skywalker then Boba Fett stay for a long time.

2026-10-08

The planet Tatooine was almost recreated in a Disney park

In 2013, Walt Disney Imagineering considered recreating the planet Tatooine during the creation of a new themed area for Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios parks. This immersive project notably included the construction of a faithful reproduction of the Mos Eisley cantina. Robert Iger, then CEO of the Walt Disney Company, finally demanded that the location not be from the original films, which gave birth to the planet Batuu.

2026-10-05

Bambi contains fewer than one thousand words of dialogue

Bambi is an animated feature film adapted from a book containing ten thousand words spread over 223 pages. The first screenplay written for the film was initially reduced to 5,000 words. The final feature film ultimately retains only 950 words of dialogue, relying on a drama based on litotes and silence.

2026-10-04

A Chinese artist revolutionized the backgrounds of Bambi

Tyrus Wong was hired in 1938 as a simple in-betweener on the film Bambi. He created watercolors of landscapes inspired by the Chinese pictorial tradition during his weekends. Impressed, Walt Disney promoted him to the art department to design most of the forest backgrounds for the feature film.

2026-10-04

The series The Wire was inspired by a police immersion

In 1988, journalist David Simon spent an entire year within the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department. This experience allowed him to write a book on the subject, which then led to the creation of the television series The Wire broadcast by HBO between 2002 and 2008. This successful series thus illustrates crime and the anti-drug struggle in this American city.

2026-10-04

Philosophical discussions with a former KGB agent

Joyca and Amixem launch season 2 of their show Des Cuts & Des Zooms revolving around unusual discussions. In a bar setting, they perform manual activities while hosting people with extraordinary occupations such as a former KGB agent or an explorer. This format is inspired by a previous video named Philotacos where the two videographers cooked tacos with Cyrus North.

2026-10-04