WHEN DIRECTORS GO TOO FAR!
I guess its easy to say this in hindsight but putting an actor in jeopardy for the sake of a shot is not the way to go. Actors train to fake emotions, or rather draw upon their own experiences/inspirations, to bring a role to life.
So when a director literally pulls the rug from beneath them to get 'realistic performances', its a really shitty thing to do, particularly where stunts are concerned. Stunts are for stuntmen, not actors.
Time and time again directors put their "vision" before the safety of their actors and crew. During Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter,(1984) actress Judie Aronson suffered hypothermia, after being forced to stay in freezing water for hours, while the camera crew set up a shot in a lake. It was only when Jason actor Ted White threatened to walk, that she was finally rescued.
Alec Baldwin accidentally shot dead cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the western 'Rust' (2021). Brandon Lee died during the making of The Crow (1994). And these are just the tips of some very nasty ice burgs. During the aerial scenes filmed for You Only Live Twice (1967), cameraman John Jordan lost his foot when a helicopter rotor blade got too close.
James Cameron put Ed Harris thru hell to make the sci-fi film 'The Abyss' (1989), in which the actor almost drowned. Numerous technical problems plagued the production and co-star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio walked off set. The crew even made up badges that read 'The Abuse'.
Director John Landis was sued for the deaths of actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen who where all killed during the making of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), when a helicopter crashed on set. Malcolm McDowell suffered a scratched cornea and temporary blindness filming the brainwashing scenes for A Clockwork Orange (1971).
The list goes on and on. The more ambitious the movie, the more likely accidents and fatalities will occur.
Even with the simplest of scenes, requiring no stunts, directors still find a way to put their actors in harms way. Some Directors are simply not a people person, because they lack acting experience themselves and don’t know how to communicate with actors. That is often the problem when one stays behind the camera. They might have lots of imaginative ideas but they expect an actor to become a puppet to realise those ideas and then become frustrated when they don’t get the best results.
Its like the passenger grabbing the wheel coz they don’t like the drivers style. Plenty of times I’ve put my heart in my hands getting lifts in cars with bad drivers but I’ve never felt I had to drive the car myself.
If a director is not getting the results he wants from an actor, then maybe they should have thought about that before giving them the job in the first place, which is the whole point of a audition.
Give me your best scream.
