- 06/06/2025
10 Tiny Details Actors Requested For Movies
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00:00It's no secret that A-list actors can get a little bit over-eager with their on-set requests.
00:04Some demand millions of dollars in expenses, others a very specific selection of on-set cuisine,
00:10but there are some actors who have had some very weirdly specific demands before agreeing to do
00:16their work. Now, none of these details drastically altered their respective movie, plot, or character
00:21in any major way, but they clearly meant something to the actor all the same. I'm Josh from
00:26WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 tiny details actors requested for movies.
00:30Number 10. Ben Affleck requested not to wear a Yankees baseball cap in Gone Girl.
00:35As much as David Fincher might be an exacting director who often demands dozens of takes from
00:40his actors, he came into conflict with Ben Affleck while shooting Gone Girl for a wholly more petty
00:46reason. The scene in question called for Affleck's character to wear a New York Yankees hat while
00:51attempting to maintain a low profile at an airport. Affleck, though, a die-hard fan of
00:56the Boston Red Sox, a team which has a historic rivalry with the Yankees, just flat-out refused,
01:02requesting that he wear any other hat instead. Of the incident, Affleck commented, quote,
01:07I said, David, I love you. I would do anything for you, but I will not wear a Yankees hat. I just can't.
01:13I can't wear it because it's going to become a thing, David. I will never hear the end of it. I can't
01:18do it, and I couldn't put it on my head, end quote. According to Fincher on the movie's home video
01:23commentary, production was shut down for four days while he and Affleck hashed out the disagreement,
01:28though you might have just been joking on that. Either way, Affleck got what he wanted, and to be
01:32fair, he was kind of right as well. With the amount of stick that he gets in the press, he wouldn't
01:37have heard the end of this from the tabloids. Number 9. Sam Neill requested an Aboriginal Australian
01:42flag on his uniform, Event Horizon. For his role as Dr. William Weir in cult sci-fi horror film
01:48Event Horizon, Sam Neill made a small yet frankly ingenious costume recommendation to director
01:54Paul W.S. Anderson. With the Doctor being an Australian, the character wore a patch on his
01:59uniform bearing the country's flag, though Neill asked that the flag receive a futuristic alteration,
02:05replacing the Union Jack in the top left corner with that of an Aboriginal flag. Neill felt that this
02:10was the way that the flag should look by the year 2047, renouncing the country's colonial ties while
02:16paying tribute to those who first made Australia their home. Now we'll have to wait to see whether
02:21or not Neill's look towards the future comes to fruition, but it sure is a neat character
02:25flourish either way. Number 8. Bryce Dallas Howard requested high heels for just one scene,
02:31Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. No matter what you thought of the first Jurassic World,
02:34you'll likely remember all the controversy surrounding the footwear choice of Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire,
02:40who spends the movie fleeing from bloodthirsty dinosaurs in freaking high heels. Like fair
02:45news, that's pretty badass, you know? Still, it was a decision which received plenty of flack
02:50from fans, and so for the sequel Fallen Kingdom, the decision was made to show Claire changing her
02:56heels into some more practical boots early on. But one to never give in, Howard insisted that the
03:01film feature just a single scene with Claire back in the heels, logically opting for the early scene in
03:06which Claire is shown arriving at her office. Of the moment, Howard said, quote,
03:10In the first scene,
03:11I'm wearing high heels, and it was written like, Claire's wearing sneakers. Like, specifically,
03:16Claire's wearing sneakers. And I just circled that when I was reading it, and I was like,
03:21no, no, no, it's an office. Claire would wear heels, end quote.
03:25Number 7. Robert De Niro refused to use money on camera unless it was real. Good fellas.
03:30Robert De Niro has a reputation of being a bit of a grump on movie sets, but this one specific demand he made,
03:36making Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, is a prime example of an actor just being a little bit
03:41difficult. Playing a veteran gangster, he and his fellow cast members handled plenty of cash across
03:46the movie, living up to their explosive lifestyle, pulling heists, and of course, tipping doormen.
03:51However, De Niro decided that the prop cash used in the movie just wasn't for him. It was too fake,
03:56so he insisted on using real money in every scene he handled cash in. Instead of driving down to the
04:01bank and getting some of his own out for the scenes though, you know, considering this is very much a
04:05him problem as the use of real cash on sets isn't usually allowed. It was the prop master who had
04:11to give him 5,000 real dollars for him to carry around in his scenes. Telling the story to GQ,
04:18he said, quote,
04:19The only guy who uses real money in the movie is De Niro. He had like $5,000 cash in his pocket.
04:25I went to the bank and took out a couple thousand dollars of my own, but you had to keep track of it.
04:30Like the scene in the casino, he's throwing $50 and $20 bills around, and as soon as they cut,
04:35we're all trying to get them back like everyone frees.
04:386. Matt Damon requested his cowboy hat to have a belt buckle spelling the letter B, True Grit.
04:44Not one to be outdone by his pal Ben Affleck, Matt Damon also made a baseball-related wardrobe request
04:49on the set of the Coen brothers' western remake, True Grit. Damon, who played a Texas Ranger in the film,
04:55made arrangements for the belt buckle on his cowboy hat to resemble the letter B, in tribute to his
05:00favourite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. Given that the Red Sox's baseball cap bears the same
05:06letter B prominently on the front, it's a pretty direct tribute, albeit ingeniously slipped into
05:11such a card-carrying period movie. Damon reportedly tries to include references to the Red Sox in as
05:16many of his movies as possible, but he'll struggle to top this level of inspired sneakery. At the very
05:22least, I bet he made ol' Ben proud. 5. Roy Scheider requested to wear his police badge on his left,
05:28Jaws. Though it's often cited as a goof that Jaws' police chief protagonist Martin Brody wears his
05:34police badge on the wrong side of his uniform, this is actually no mistake at all. Indeed,
05:38police in reality traditionally wear the shield on their left side, intended to cover their heart,
05:43but Brody instead wore his on the right side of his shirt. In an interview with Empire Magazine,
05:48the film's co-writer confirmed that this switcheroo was not a mistake, but instead the actual suggestion
05:54of star Roy Scheider himself. He said, quote,
05:57All cops wear their badge on the left. Roy insisted on it, so I asked him,
06:01why are you doing that? He said, I want the audience to think this guy is complicated.
06:05This subconsciously throws the audience off balance. It was great to have an audience's
06:10interest piqued by this little wardrobe tweak. I always thought that was an amazing choice,
06:14end quote. Given that Brody is effectively the film's single example of forward-thinking authority,
06:19it does make sense that he isn't cut from quite the same button-down cloth as his fellow servicemen,
06:24whether you noticed it or not. Number four, Annika Noni Rose requested Princess Tiana be left-handed
06:30like herself, The Princess and the Frog. The Princess and the Frog is surely one of the most underappreciated
06:35films in Disney's back catalogue, a vibrant and refreshingly diverse spin on the typical Disney
06:40Princess formula. Singer-actress Annika Noni Rose provided the voice for teenage protagonist Tiana,
06:45and some fans eventually noticed that Tiana is one of only two Disney princesses, the other being
06:50Mulan, to be left-handed. And this was actually a request from none other than Rose herself,
06:54who, being left-handed, felt that translating her own left-handedness into the character would
06:59represent her all the more accurately on screen. Ultimately, the anime is not only agreed, but also
07:04included Annika's own facial dimples in the final design as well. Number three, Henry Cavill
07:09requested to keep his hairy chest, Man of Steel. Of the myriad divisive things on Zack Snyder's Man of
07:15Steel, many Superman fans took umbrage with the superhero showing off a distinctly hairy chest
07:21during the oil rig rescue sequence. This, though, was actually a request from Henry Cavill himself,
07:26who, when asked to shave his chiseled bod, fired back with a comic reference to state his case
07:32for keeping Supes' hairy chest. He said, quote,
07:35It's something that I wanted because in the comic book The Death of Superman, there's this bit where
07:40his costume's ripped, and he's making the ultimate sacrifice, and he's got his hairy chest, and I was
07:45like, okay, why is the perception that because he's muscly, he must have no body hair? And I thought,
07:50why can't we just do that, like in the comic books? So, we did. So there, haters be damned.
07:55It ensured that Cavill's stocky beefcake Superman had a look quite unlike any other live-action
08:00iteration of the DC icon. Number two, Samuel L. Jackson requested a purple lightsaber,
08:06the Star Wars prequels. Probably the most unique and memorable aspect of Mace Windu as a character
08:11is that he commands a purple lightsaber, a flourish which Samuel L. Jackson himself suggested to George
08:17Lucas. In addition to Jackson's clear fondness for purple in real life, given how often it figures
08:22into the wardrobes of his movie characters, he also wanted to make sure that he stood out in the
08:26movie's action scenes amid a sea of robed warriors. And as the saying goes, shy Ben's getting out,
08:32and though Lucas was initially a bit hesitant, he eventually acquiesced and allowed Jackson to
08:37wield a purple lightsaber during reshoots. While the trilogy sadly never quite capitalized on Jackson's
08:42sheer badassery, the purple saber sure was a neat look for the character, and true to Jackson's hopes,
08:48did help Mace Windu stand out from his Jedi brethren. Number one, Steve McQueen requested 12
08:53extra lines of dialogue to match Paul Newman, The Towering Inferno. And finally, this request wasn't
08:59some quirky wardrobe ask, but a minor tweak related to dialogue allocation of all things. 1974's Oscar
09:05winning disaster film The Towering Inferno boasted a terrific ensemble cast, led by the inimitable pairing
09:11of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. However, after signing on, McQueen had a few requests to ensure that
09:16he received equal treatment compared to co-star Newman. In addition to seeking and receiving the same
09:21salary, McQueen also asked that they receive equally prominent billing on the movie's posters, and
09:26better still, requested that his lines of dialogue numbered exactly the same as Newman. And so,
09:31this led to McQueen reportedly reading the movie's script and counting the lines for both himself
09:36and Newman, after which he asked the screenwriter to pen an extra 12 lines of dialogue for himself,
09:42which he duly did. Ego jostling aside, everything clearly worked out for the best here,
09:46given the film's enormous critical and commercial success.
Recommended
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