When Jorge Garcia first got the part on LOST as Hurley, he lost a total of 30 pounds in weight before filming started.
100 Mind-Blowing Filming Facts
While filming Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey had his crown temporarily removed – that chipped tooth is real and a result of a childhood fight.
Daniel Radcliffe had the same stunt double for the first six Harry Potter movies – until the double was paralyzed from an accident on set during the filming of the 7th movie.
While filming Rocky IV, Lundgren hit Sylvester Stallone for real, and he ended up in the hospital for nine days.
Angelina Jolie performed her stunts whilst filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
Daniel Radcliffe broke over 80 wands while filming the Harry Potter movies because he used them as drumsticks!
Brad Pitt suffered an ironic injury on a film set. In Troy, based on Homer’s Illiad, Pitt plays the brave (and buff) Greek hero Achilles. Legend has it that Achilles could not be defeated unless hit in his heel. (It’s where we get the term “Achilles’ heel,” meaning a vulnerable point.) While filming an epic battle scene, Pitt ironically hurt his Achilles tendon—an injury that set back the film’s production by two months.
Toto was paid $125 per week while filming The Wizard of Oz. In the 1939 hit The Wizard of Oz, Toto was played by a brindle Cairn Terrier named Terry. She was paid a $125 salary each week, which was even more than some of the human actors (ie: the Singer Midgets who played the Munchkins allegedly received $50 to $100 a week).
Arnold Schwarzenegger once forgot to take off the Terminator look. During a break in filming Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger went to a restaurant in downtown L.A. to get lunch. However, he realized too late that he was still in Terminator makeup – missing eye, exposed jawbone, burned flesh, and all.
Will Smith wanted to adopt the German Shepherd in I Am Legend. Will Smith grew so fond of his canine co-star, Abbey, that he tried to adopt her when filming was finished. However, the dog’s trainer didn’t want to give her up.
Sylvester Stallone landed in the I.C.U. While filming Rocky. Stallone wanted to make sure the boxing scenes looked authentic in Rocky IV, so he instructed Dolph Lundgren to hit him. A punch to the chest landed Stallone in intensive care for four days.
Brendan Fraser almost died filming The Mummy. During a scene where his character is hanged, Fraser nearly loses his life on the set of The Mummy. According to co-star Rachel Weisz, Fraser had to be resuscitated after the botched hanging scene.
Arnold Schwarzenegger practised with guns every day for a month to prepare for The Terminator. To achieve the mechanical motions of The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger worked with guns daily for an entire month. During the first two weeks of filming, he practised stripping and reassembly while blindfolded until he was able to do it robotically and with both hands. He also practised using different weapons without blinking or looking at them when reloading.
The Kingsman underwater scene was not scripted. One of the most gruelling scenes in Kingsman is the underwater escape scene. The actors delivered a scene that even had you panicking. However, it’s closer to life than you think. The flooding was a technical mishap that derailed the rehearsed flow of the scene. Director Matthew Vaughn recalls it as a horrible first day of filming. The cut was still used in the film.
Jim Caviezel was struck by lightning while playing Jesus in The Passion Of The Christ. While filming the Sermon on the Mount, Caviezel and another film crew were suddenly struck by lightning. Luckily, it wasn’t fatal.
The filming locations included Poland and Israel. The production team sought out authentic settings to accurately depict the events of the Holocaust, including the former concentration camp sites.
Although the TV show “Friends” is based around life in New York City, the entire show was filmed in California. Whether you love it or hate it, Friends was one of the most iconic TV shows to come out of the nineties and early 2000s. One of the most surprising facts about Friends is that it wasn’t filmed in Manhattan, where it’s set, but at the Warner Brothers Ranch just outside of Los Angeles. That being said, there are a small handful of locations where filming took place outside of LA. One of these is, of course, Monica and Rachel’s apartment building at 90 Bedford St in New York. Several other locations filmed in New York for the serious include the places where the friends all work.