20 Iconic Scenes In TV And Movies That Were Initially Unplanned

Good actors bring more than just reciting their lines

Kylin

• Published in Film & TV
• June 25, 2022

We have favorite TV shows and movies for a really, and that’s usually due to the writing and how well the actors perform their roles. While it seems like an obvious thing, successfully portraying a role as an actor means it is essential for them to be able to stay in character and be prepared to change course quickly or come up with new material on the fly.

Being able to stay in character and extend that character outside what the writers come up with is no easy feat, and it’s what really makes our favorite actors so great. And it’s those collaborations between the writers and actors that make some of the best content.

This means that some of the most iconic scenes in some of the biggest and most popular movies and shows weren’t originally scripted. Last-minute rewrites or improvisations provided by actors have made for some of the most popular and loved scenes in cinema history.

We collected 20 iconic or otherwise memorable scenes from popular movies and TV shows across the years that were not originally scripted. Shows like Schitt’s Creek and Parks and Recreation made the list along box office movie hits including The Godfather, Django Unchained, and Pretty Woman.

Keep reading to see which iconic scenes almost didn’t make it onto the final cut.

1. New Girl

The character Schmidt in New Girl is hilarious, and it's mainly thanks to Max Greenfield, the actor who plays him. He shared that he came up with many of the offbeat pronunciations and little quirks that we love about the character.

"Whenever I'm gonna do it, whenever I see a word that I think to myself, 'I'm going to lay into that one,' I always get excited, and I probably break in the first take. And no one else laughs," he told Entertainment Weekly.

2. Pretty Woman

If you think about the movie Pretty Woman, it's almost guaranteed you think of the scene where Richard Gere's character snaps a jewelry box shut just as Julia Roberts' character reaches for it, and being surprised, she laughs.

According to the director, Garry Marshall shared with the American Film Institute, that wasn't in the script. They decided to keep it in because she "laughed so honestly."

Watch the iconic scene below

3. Jaws

The line "you're gonna need a bigger boat" is the first thing anyone thinks of when they think of the movie Jaws. It is truly the most iconic line, and it was never scripted.

Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb told The Hollywood Reporter that the line was essentially a catchphrase used by the crew for any time anything went wrong. So during rewrites, it naturally fell into place.

Watch this scene below

4. Stranger Things

In Season Three of Stranger Things, when Eleven collapses into Mike's arms out of exhaustion, it's said that was totally real.

According to director Shawn Levy, they had been shooting for four 10- to 12-hour days, and Millie Bobby Brown had "real exhaustion." Weird flex about unscrupulous working conditions for children, but go off.

5. Clueless

During Cher's debate speech in front of the class, she mispronounces Haitians as Haiti-ans, but that wasn't written in the script, that was a "happy accident" thanks to Alicia Silverstone.

"It wasn't written that way in the script, but that's how [she] said it," director Amy Heckerling told Vice. "Everybody started to run towards her to correct her and I had to kind of block them all, like 'Step away from the actress!' I didn't want her to act; I just wanted her to feel that confidence."

Explaining isn't enough, you gotta hear it

6. Crazy Stupid Love

A memorable moment from Crazy Stupid Love was when Ryan Gosling's character gave Emma Stone's character the famous lift from Dirty Dancing during a date. But it wasn't ever scripted, it was something Gosling came up with.

Director John Requa told Entertainment Weekly, that Gosling came up with the idea to incorporate in the film because it was a move he admitted to using on women in real life.

7. The Godfather

The iconic opening monologue of The Godfather has Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) petting a cat as he speaks, which turned out to be a literal last-minute decision.  

Director Francis Ford Coppola shared that the addition of the cat said was a last-minute decision. "The cat in Marlon's hands was not planned for. I saw the cat running around the studio, and took it and put it in his hands without a word," Coppola said.

8. Parks & Rec

In Season 3, Episode 2, Leslie Knope has the flu. When she was complaining about her flu symptoms, Andy hilariously tells her "Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the thing up here and it says you could have network connectivity problems!" That line wasn't in the script, as showrunner Michael Schur told AV Club, Chris came up with that himself.

Showrunner Michael Schur told AV Club that they didn't have that line in the script, but Chris Pratt came up with that himself. "If I could write a joke that good, I would be a happy man. And it was completely improvised."

Watch the silly scene below

9. The Office

Apparently, Oscar and Michael were only supposed to hug in the episode where they find out Oscar is gay, "Gay Witch Hunt." However, Steve Carell decided to improvise something else instead, and in the most awkwardly painful way, they kissed.

"That particular take he came in really close, and I'm like, 'Where is he going with this?' And then I'm just thinking, 'Oh God, nobody laugh so we can use it.' And they didn't, and it worked perfectly. It was a lot of fun," Nuñez shared.

10. Raiders of the Lost Ark

During an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit, Harrison Ford shared a behind-the-scenes last-minute change to the script of Raiders of the Lost Ark due to dysentery.

The scene where he shoots the man with the sword was supposed to be a drawn-out fight scene, but Ford couldn't be away from his trailer for too long due to coming down with dysentery. Instead, For and the director agreed to a quick rewrite that made for a memorable scene.

"The poor guy was a wonderful British stuntman who had practiced his sword skills for months in order to do this job, and was quite surprised by the idea that we would dispatch him in five minutes," Ford said.

Check out the scene below

11. Django Unchained

According to producer Stacey Sher, Leonardo DiCaprio slammed his hand on the table so many times and with such force that he unintentionally ended up cutting his hand and was bleeding, but never broke character.

“Leo had slammed his hand on the table countless times and he moved his hand further and he crushed a crystal cordial glass,” Sher says. “Blood was dripping down his hand. He never broke character. He kept going. He was in such a zone. It was very intense. He required stitches.”

12. Bridesmaids

One of the most memorable scenes in Bridesmaids was when everyone got hit with food poisoning while shopping for wedding dresses, but apparently, that idea was added to the movie at the last minute.

Cinematographer Robert Yeoman told HuffPost: "They brought those pages in and said, 'This is what we're going to do,' and I remember at the time being a little horrified by the whole thing and thinking, 'Oh my gosh, how are we going to do this.' That's not something that I personally was a big fan of, but a lot of people really love that scene."

13. Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets

In Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets, Ron and Harry drink polyjuice potion to turn into Malfoy's goons, Goyle and Crabbe. When Harry (as Goyle) told Malfoy that he was wearing glasses because he was reading, Malfoy quipped, "I didn't know you could read."

On Facebook Watch, Tom said that director Chris Columbus improv that line and added it in on the fly.

Check out the scene below

14. Schitt's Creek

Catherine O'Hara is an amazing actress and comedian. She really turned her character, Moira Rose, into something spectacular with all her quirks and accent.

That extends to how she pronounces the word baby as "bébé," O'Hara came up with that during rehearsing.

"I said 'bébé' as a joke or a mistake the first time," O'Hara told Vulture. "Once I hit on 'bébé' and got a laugh from the crew, that was it."

An excellent compilation of Moira saying "bébé"

15. The Haunting of Hill House

Director Mike Flanagan instructed Victoria Pedretti to jump up and scare her co-stars sooner than they expected in order to have more authentic reactions.

"Elizabeth and Kate were just in the scene and they knew they had another half-page of words to get through before Victoria would appear, and she just bolted upright in the middle of their lines, and so their reaction is completely genuine," Flanagan shared with Entertainment Weekly.

16. How I Met Your Mother

The gut-wrenching scene where Marshall finds out his father has died on How I Met Your Mother is made more heartbreaking knowing that Jason Segel didn't know exactly what to expect to come from the episode.

"When it came time to perform the scene, Jason wanted to feel Marshall’s shock as palpably as possible, so he chose not to read Lily’s dialogue beforehand. All he knew was the last word of Lily’s line: 'it.'"

As the last words of Lily’s line — “he didn’t make it” — left Alyson’s mouth, I had to look away, as did our director Pamela Fryman. It’s our job to watch what happens, but in this case, what Jason and Alyson were going through was so unbearably real…we just had to trust that when we got back to the edit room it would all be in focus. (It was.)"

Grab your tissues before watching this one

17. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

According to a letter that Gene Wilder wrote to director Mel Stuart, he would only take the role of Willy Wonky if he got to make up Wonka's grand entrance.

And obviously, that's exactly what he did. He pretended to be old and walk with a cane before pretending to fall and somersaulted and jumped up from the ground.

Watch the full "Grand Entrance"

18. Riverdale

There was an emotional scene in the CW show where Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) tried to take her own life by drowning in a frozen lake. Archie (KJ Apa) and their friends ran across the ice to try to save her, and Archie started to punch the ice to help break through to rescue her.

He wasn't actually supposed to punch the ice, but he did and ended up breaking his hand in the process.

"I wasn't really punching the ice, I just got a little bit too excited, and I was punching a foam mat … sitting on the ice, but I was just kind of going for it, do you know what I mean? And it was cold, so I didn't really feel it," he said.

19. Parenthood

After Amber (Mae Whitman) survived a life-threatening car accident, her grandfather Zeek (Craig T. Nelson) takes her to see the crushed car in the junkyard and gave her a speech about how his life would have been affected if she died.

According to Whitman, Nelson improvised his speech, making her cry real tears. "I went into that scene and didn't know what he was going to say ... so all my reactions in that scene are totally surprised and genuine," she said.

20. Grey's Anatomy

Jo (Camilla Luddington) got the fantastic news that she got into a very hard-to-get fellowship, and in her excitement, she kissed her husband, Alex, and then turned to kiss their friend and coworker, Arizona. Later, Camilla told fans on Twitter that the kiss was unscripted, but she took the opportunity.

We can't imagine any of these scenes not existing and are infinitely grateful for the actors and directors flexing their skills to give us some of the most enjoyable media. Especially the heart-wrenching scenes, like from Parenthood, which is really amazing and show what incredible depth and talent these actors have.

Which was your favorite scene that we mentioned in the list above? Do you know of any other popular scenes that weren’t initially scripted that we didn’t include?

Drop your thoughts in the comments section below, and be sure to share this with your friends!

Kylin