We all know actors get paid a lot of money for what they do, and on top of that, they still have high demands which they need met while on set. They demand things like a certain brand of water or a change in character features. Some of their demands are outrageous but studio staff meets all of these to keep the peace while on set because we all know that no one would want to work with a difficult actor. Take a look at these actors and their demands, you’ll be appalled at how ridiculous some of them are.
Mike Myers
We would think that actors’ demands would be difficult and tiresome to meet, but Mike Myers' demands while recording his voiceover for Shrek actually had some good benefits. While they were putting the first cut of the movie together Myers did not like Shrek's accent which he had to put on. The initial accent was a heavy Canadian one, but Myers felt that a Scottish accent would be better suited for Shrek's character.
So, the company went with Myers’ demand and made the changes, which cost them a massive $4 million extra. To be fair though, we definitely think that the change was well worth the $4 million.
Ben Affleck
Actors have a tendency to throw little tantrums now and then when they do not get their own way, we have all seen or heard about it. Ben Affleck threw his own tantrum though when he didn’t want to wear the hat the director of the film Gone Girl gave him so that people wouldn't recognize him while walking through an airport. The hat was a Yankees hat and as a Boston Red Sox fan, he just could not do it.
Because of the fight, this caused them to put filming on hold for 4 days while Affleck composed himself. He eventually compromised with the director and wore a Mets hat instead.
Paris Hilton
The world knows how eccentric and over the top Paris Hilton can be, not just when she is in front of the cameras but just in everyday life. So, it's no surprise that she would be one to demand something crazy while on the set of the movie The Other Guys. She requested to have live lobsters available for when you felt hungry and to go with it a bottle of Grey Goose.
However, if like us you don't remember her being in the movie, it's because her scene was eventually cut. After all those demands, you would think they would at least keep the scene in.
Shia LaBeouf
Actors can really take their roles to the extreme, whether it is things like excessive weight loss or weight gain, dying or bleaching their hair to shaving their eyebrows off, it is intense. But Shia LaBeouf takes the cake with his extreme demanded changes for his characters look in the movie Fury. LeBeouf decided that fake makeup cuts weren't good enough, so he gave himself real cuts on his face.
It didn’t stop there though; he even got a tooth pulled out to get into the role of the tank gunner. Luckily, he didn’t do that himself, he did actually go to a dentist.
Jamie Foxx
While filming the movie Miami Vice, Jamie Foxx decided that he needed to be paid more than Colin Farrell, his co-star, but his demands didn’t stop there. Foxx requested a private jet, and he didn’t want to film, not only on a boat or plane but also near them. He made quite the name for himself with the film crew while shooting the movie as many of them thought he was being a drama queen with his requests.
He also left the set after an incident while filming the final scene in the Dominican Republic, which then lead the director to shoot it in Miami. It just seems like he would go to any lengths to just get his way.
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise is most famous for his roles in Top Gun and Mission Impossible, and if you didn’t know this already, he almost always does his own stunts as well. His demand is pretty funny though. Cruise requested to wear a custom-made stretchy thong while shooting his action stunts. Not only do the wardrobe staff need to make him these custom thongs, but they also need to make enough for him to use for each time he shoots an action scene.
It would be such a funny sight to be able to see Cruise in his “stunt” thong. Yet we doubt they would make them a revealing color like bright pink or something.
George Clooney
George Clooney comes across as this sophisticated and serious guy, but after learning of his demands while filming the movie Gravity, it seems like there is a slight fun side to him too. Clooney demanded to have a few things at his disposal while filming in spite of him only having a small part in the movie. He demanded to have a small garden, a basketball court, a jacuzzi, and a specially made beach hut which needed to be set next to his trailer.
Even though the film had a $100 million budget, this requested of his cost them $125,000. He saw the opportunity to have some outrageous requests and took it on with a vengeance.
Daniel Day-Lewis
Sometimes it takes a lot for an actor to stay in character. Especially for roles that have very deep characters and are really hard to portray. Occasionally some actors even get stuck in their roles, well not literally, they just get typecasted over and over. But for Daniel Day-Lewis that's not the case. This method actor demanded quite a bit just to help him stay in character as Abraham Lincoln in the movie Lincoln.
Firstly, he needed everyone, and we mean everyone, on set to call him "Mr. President". Next, he didn't want to use any sort of technology that Lincoln wouldn't have used, and lastly, he wouldn't speak to anyone who was British.
Orson Welles
Orson Welles was known for making his strange requests while filming. Although he is no longer alive, his most famous request came while shooting the film The Black Rose in 1950. Welles wanted his coat, which he wore in the film, to be lined on the inside with minx fur. Although a strange request, the film producers made it happen. After filming Welles had kept the coat for himself and used it in another film two years later.
With all the options of demands today, we are sure that if Welles was alive in today's world, he would have some interesting on-set demands. And most of them probably would disappear and resurface in more films later on.
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan has had her fair share of ups and downs in her life and acting career. As someone who started off as a child star, it's not surprising she demanded what she did while acting in the movie The Canyons. The movie was an erotic thriller and her character needed to, of course, get naked. So, in order for her to shoot naked, she requested that everyone on set had to get naked too.
The crew, unfortunately, didn't feel comfortable doing so, so for them to get the scene done the director took the plunge and got naked. He kept his socks on though, you know for some decency.
Jack Nicholson
There is something strange about how celebrities are so faithful to their sports teams, that they will push for anything that is against their supported teams to not be allowed near them. While shooting The Departed, Jack Nicholson had requested that any Celtic paraphernalia not be allowed on set because they are opponents of the team he supports, L.A. Lakers. Sorry to the other film crew who may support the opposing team.
This wasn’t his only request though, he wanted to also change his character a bit to be more sexually wicked. He wanted a few of the sex scenes to be added and he also had proposed what should be done.
Lena Heady
As far as we can understand, actors need to work in some difficult situations and we would think that considering how much they are being paid, they’ll almost work anywhere, with anyone and in any situation. But no, not for Lena Heady. After her breakup with ex and co-star Jerome Flynn, she demanded to not do any scenes with him. Not only do the pair no longer talk to each other, but they also will not even be in the same space together.
She must really dislike him that no amount of money would make her be anywhere near him. The breakup between them, which was years ago, obviously wasn’t a pretty one.
Will Smith
Will Smith is an all-time favorite for many people from many different generations and with his diverse range of movies and series he’s done over the years, he is bound to be featured here. While they were shooting Men In Black III, Will Smith, like all other actors, had his own trailer. But the standard one was not enough to suit his needs. Smith demanded to have a double story trailer.
The trailer had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a movie room which cost the production company $2 million. If that isn't shocking enough, his studio apartment was only a few miles away.
Gary Busey
In 1988 Gary Busey had a real-life near-death experience. During that time, he claimed he had been to heaven and seen what it looked like. This led to one of the oddest demands we may have heard of yet. While Busey was acting for the movie Quigley, a story about a guy who dies, then passes through heaven and is reincarnated into a dog, he had demanded the heaven set be changed.
The heaven on set did not suffice and had to be changed to his version of heaven. The sofa was not right, and he had mentioned how there were no mirrors in heaven either, who knew?
Val Kilmer
The 1996 movie The Island of Dr. Moreau was an absolute failure of a film. The movie did quite badly and some of it had to do with actor Val Kilmer. While filming, Kilmer was not the easiest person to work with. His demands started with requesting to shoot 60% less of the time which was originally scheduled. After that, he then wanted to play a different role which was less work.
He also made a bit of a scene one day, and not in an acting way. Kilmer sat down one day during filming and just downright refused to get back up.
Jim Carrey
We would think with Jim Carrey’s personality he would not really seem to be the one which would come across as demanding. Even so, his demands were luckily not as bad as some of the others we have seen. While shooting Man On The Moon, Carrey really needed to get in tune with his character Andy Kaufman so he demanded everyone called him Andy when he was shooting scenes like him.
On the other days, he didn't want to be called Jim, he wanted to be called Tony. Tony Clifton was Andy Kaufman's alter ego. We're sure Jim could've demanded a little bit more than that though.
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sex And The City star, Sarah Jessica Parker, is such an icon and should be given everything she demands. Surprisingly enough though, her demands don't come while filming for Sex And The City, they came from filming the movie Divorce. Parker had requested that she can call action and cut when filming needs to stop and start. This demand also had to be put into a contract, just in case anyone wanted to contest.
Parker also requests that while shooting no one may take photos of her while eating or take any videos. We are not sure why, but we cannot imagine her looking anything but lovely while eating.
Will Farrell
Will Farrell is one of the funniest actors of our time. His wit and crazy personality really make for some great humor in his movies. This is why we are not surprised that his on-set demands were just as funny. While they were filming Semi-Pro in 2009, Farrell had requested that he gets a mobility scooter, some Janet Jackson style microphone headset, and, for who knows what reason, a rainbow on wheels.
When asked for his requests he probably just went with the first outrageous ideas which came to mind. But Farrell got his demands, and we are sure he enjoyed having them too.
Johnny Depp
While filming Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Johnny Depp's demands were not exactly ones that came directly from him. It was more his actions that lead to the production team having to give him some sort of special treatment. Depp was always late on-set because of being up too late the nights before drinking in his trailer. Because of this he never used to learn his lines either.
Being late on-set lead to extra costs as the timing was delayed for shooting. And with the lack of effort to learn lines, the producers then gave Depp an earpiece and read him his lines.
Steve McQueen
The 1974 action movie The Towering Inferno starred Paul Newman and the demanding one, Steve McQueen. During filming McQueen had some seriously crazy requests. Firstly, he wanted to have just as many things to say as Newman did, well, just the lines in the movie, which led to the producers having to add in more script for him. His second request was to have a shorter brim on his fireman's hat.
His demands meant more time and more money for the production team. Each of the other cast members also needed to get shorter brimmed hats and those do not come cheap.
Kirk Cameron
Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron seems to have some sort of "innocent angel" complex when it came to his demands. Although the actor was known as quite the serial dater, we would think that this would leave him a bit more understanding. However, while filming the show Cameron wasn't shy about pointing out things that were inappropriate during the show. This even led to his short-term girlfriend and co-star Julie McCullough being fired from the show.
Cameron found out McCullough had posed for Playboy and that was just too inappropriate for him to handle. He really does show how demanding one can be if he was willing to get his ex-girlfriend fired.
Katherine Heigl
Katherine Heigl isn’t a co-star favorite around many who are in the filming scene. She is apparently very difficult to work with and almost always full of nonsense. Heigl had quite the run-on Grey's Anatomy and the fact that most of her co-stars didn't like her wasn't the worse part about her time there. Just before she left the show, she got nominated for an Emmy award, but with her bad attitude and high-demand personality, she turned it down.
Some weren't even surprised when it happened because of how she was on the show. But her reason for doing it was that she didn't feel the script was worthy of an award. What a slap in the writer's face.
Jennifer Lawrence
If you have ever seen any of Jennifer Lawrence’s interviews, you can see she is such a quirky and fun celebrity and she usually plays roles with similar characteristics. However, while filming for the movie Mother, a horror, Jennifer demanded something which would keep her calm and pull away from the seriousness for a while. She requested to have a tent where she could chill and watch Keeping Up with The Kardashians.
Of course, this wasn’t the only thing. The tent also needed to have some Kardashian posters up and some gumballs for an extra taste of fun. When it comes to demands, Lawrence may have been onto something here.
Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin, who plays Jack Donaghy in the 30 Rock series, is not as calm in real life as his character is. While shooting the series, Baldwin just could not seem to be happy with much around him. He complained about the quality of the air being too dry and that it would affect his voice, and something had to be done about it. He demanded to have a humidifier present on set.
You must know that if someone moans about the air quality, they are bound to moan about anything and everything else. But luckily, he only had one massive request and not loads of little ones.
Prince
The cast of New Girl was lucky enough to have Price on set for an episode a few years before he passed away in 2016. Prince was quite a fan of Zooey Deschanel and Jack Johnson's characters in New Girl and was really happy to be part of the show. The only demand he had was that none of the Kardashian's would be on set as they were supposed to be.
The reason behind this was a dispute between him and Kim Kardashian during a show. He felt that she did not respect him and his show when she was invited to join him on stage.
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is a weird actor. He always plays these interesting and unusual characters in movies, just like in Vampires Kiss. His character is sure he will become a vampire after a woman bites him on the neck. His demand wasn't about the women or the bite but was around the bat which would be featured in the room. Cage demanded to have a real bat in the room and not a fake one.
Luckily for the rest of the crew, he didn't get his way and they landed up just using a fake one anyway. Less mess for the rest of the crew to clean up.
Wesley Snipes
Sometimes these actors are more stubborn than demanding when it comes to the things they want to and do not want to do while on set. Wesley Snipes winds hands down on the stubbornness though. When the Marvel comics movie Blade: Trinity was shot, Snipes who played Blade was not too pleased with the director and because of that he refused to act for several scenes and would rather get his double to do it.
His attitude on-set was ridiculous. He wouldn’t speak to anyone on set, he would rather pass messages on via his PA and sometimes he wouldn’t even keep his eyes open. How problematic and disrespectful.
Eric Stoltz
Eric Stoltz momentarily played Marty in Back to The Future before Michael J. Fox got the role. During Stoltz’s time acting the role he was so in-tune with his part that he just didn’t want to come out of it. He wouldn’t want to respond to anyone unless they called him Marty and for some or other reason, he was callously hostile to Tom Wilson, who acted as Biff in the movie.
After Stoltz got into a shoving fight with Wilson, he was fired from the roll. Luckily for us who love the film, Michael J. Fox came to the rescue playing a great role and not causing fights with anyone on set.
Christian Bale
Sometimes we forget that actors are just people too with real feelings and normal actions. Even though with some of these demands they may forget they are just real people, they still are. Christian Bale lost it at a lightning technician while on-set for Terminator Salvation and his bad behavior was even caught on film. We are unsure what the lash-out was about, but Bale did acknowledge his reaction was unnecessary and terrible.
Bale did release a public apology and mentioned there was no excuse for his behavior. It could have just been pressure from filming, and he snapped at the nearest person.
Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah is such an iconic actress. She can pull her characters off to a T, and she comes across as a lovely person to be around in general. Now here demand isn't as outrageous as some and actually, it is quite a clever demand rather than a crazy one. Latifah has a condition in her filming contracts that states that she will not play a character who gets killed off.
It would be a problem if all actors took on this condition in their contracts. But Latifah probably has her reasons for this, maybe to avoid some bad juju or something.
Lea Michele
The show Scream Queens literally explains exactly what the show is about, a bunch of diva girls in situations which leave them screaming. Knowing this, it kind of defeats the point when Lea Michele demanded to not scream during filming the series. She stated that the reason behind this was because of her voice which she uses mostly for singing and wouldn't want to do anything drastic to damage it.
She landed up only screaming twice in the series and then the producers had to use those for all her other screams. If you haven’t watched the show yet, check it out just to see if you can pick up how her screams are all alike.
Julia Roberts
Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts is blissfully famous, not only from Pretty Woman but almost all the movies she has acted in are great ones, mainly because of her. We wouldn't think Roberts would come across as a demanding person with outrageous needs and wants, and luckily, she isn't. Roberts has one simple request for when she is on set, she needs at least 4 gallons of water every day, and not just any water, Evian bottled water.
If her demands aren't met she will fine the production company with a 6-figure price. That does seem extreme, but she is serious about her water intake, and you can't keep that from her.
Marlon Brando
It is astonishing when you find out that actors don't do all of the acting in their movies themselves. A lot of the work is done by stand-ins and stunt doubles which is supposed to be helpful to the actors when they can't do certain scenes. But Marlon Brando had other ideas while shooting for The Island of Dr. Moreau. He demanded his character was sensitive to the sun and needed to have sunscreen smeared all over his face and body.
The reason for this was so that Brando didn’t have to do too many scenes himself. His stand-in would be able to do more work with all that covering over his face. Lazy or clever, what do you think?
Jerome Flynn
Jerome Flynn acted as the chilled and canny Bronn on the HBO fantasy series, Game of Thrones. He was in a few episodes over all the seasons but if you didn’t notice, he was never in any of the scenes with Lena Headey, who played Cersei Lannister. Now, we already know from above that Lena and Jerome were exes and that she refused to be on-set with him or even near him.
However, Jerome had originally denied that there were any issues when he was first questioned about it, but there is more and more evidence that they definitely did have issues. He probably denied it because the breakup was his fault.
Uma Thurman
Uma Thurman often plays roles of women who are hard, rough, and boisterous, so it does come as a surprise that she would demand something which you would expect from a more girly dress-up type actress. On the set of Eloise, Thurman demanded to have the best dressing room available. She needed to have the one which bigger and better than the others which were left to her co-stars.
This wasn’t her only request though, she also needed full power to refuse any promotional material of herself. So being able to say no to certain photos and having the most space to get ready in is all it takes to satisfy Uma Thurman.