Recently, Reddit user Feeling_Doughnut5714 asked what improvised scenes were so good they became iconic scenes in the film. There were a ton of great lines and moments, some of which I’d never even heard of — here are some of the best!
1.
Training Day director Antoine Fuqua revealed that Denzel Washington came up with the iconic quote, “King Kong ain’t got nothing on me,” from the film. “The King Kong moment came out of Denzel,” he said. “I remember that moment because we were doing the scene, and he just started going off. I remember looking at the cameraman and saying, ‘I hope you got that, because I don’t think we’re going to get that again.’ Denzel came over to me and goes, ‘Whoo, I don’t know where that came from.'”
2.
Director Mel Brooks similarly revealed that this classic line from Young Frankenstein was an improvisation by Gene Hackman. “He came up with that line: ‘Where are you going? I was going to make espresso!'” Brooks recalled. “[Hackman] said, ‘Let me try a few things.’ And that was one of the things he tried, and I said, ‘Oh, that’s a keeper.'”
3.
During the famous scene in The Breakfast Club where the kids open up and reveal why they’re in detention, the specific lines were reportedly improvised and suggested by the actors themselves. This made the scene come off as much more genuine and in the moment.
4.
The “most annoying sound in the world” scene from Dumb and Dumber was also improvised. “There were moments, very few, where Jim would go off. And one of the few was, ‘You wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?'” Jim Carrey’s costar, Jeff Daniels, revealed. He recalled Carrey saying the line in the middle of the take, then making the sound and wondering what he was doing. “I just repeated what he was doing because when in doubt, repeat Jim,” Daniels recalled.
5.
In The Departed, there’s a memorable moment where Costello (played by Jack Nicholson) shoots a woman in the back of the head, then notes that she fell “funny.” According to Nicholson’s costar Matt Damon, the script initially just read, “Costello executes man kneeling in the marshes.” Nicholson apparently suggested they change the character to a woman and have Costello make that comment because it felt like a sinister comment that suggested Costello does this type of murder a lot, to the point where he’s noticed how people fall.
6.
Nicholson also improvised the unhinged “Here’s Johnny!” from The Shining as a reference to Johnny’s introduction in The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The line became so famous, it’s on t-shirts for the film.
7.
One of the most memorable moments of Saltburn — when Oliver masturbates on Felix’s grave — was improvised by star Barry Keoghan. “I wanted to see what Oliver would do next. I wanted to see what the next level of obsession was. And by that [I mean], I just wanted the camera to roll,” explained Keoghan. “Not to kind of preempt it or rehearse it and what happened, happened. It was one take, and I think it was right. It moved the story forward.”
8.
Chris Hemsworth’s hilarious story from Thor: Ragnarok about Loki tricking Thor as a child was ad-libbed. According to director Taika Waititi, they shot a few different stories, but that ended up being the best one.
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In Thor, Chris Hemsworth also improvised the hilarious moment when Thor throws his coffee mug down and requests another.
10.
While filming Goodfellas, Joe Pesci told his costars a story about once telling a man he was funny and the man taking it the wrong way. Director Martin Scorcese liked it so much that he decided to put it in the film; the actors improvised versions of the scene a few times, then filmed the final version you see in the film, which became one of its most famous scenes.
11.
It’s often reported that Tommy Lee Jones improvised the line “I don’t care” in the below scene from The Fugitive. Director Andrew Davis acknowledged last year that different crew and cast members remembered the moment differently, but that according to script supervisor Dru Anne Carlson, the line was Jones’ suggestion. “All I need to say is, ‘I don’t care,'” Jones reportedly said. The original script for that moment was apparently much longer.
12.
We can’t totally confirm this, but there have long been reports that Sean Connery came up with the “Bond. James Bond” line in Dr. No, the first Bond film he appeared in. The original script reportedly simply read, “I am James Bond.”
13.
Costar Tim Matheson revealed that John Belushi’s iconic “I’m a zit” scene from Animal House was improvised. “Belushi’s cafeteria scene shoving food in his mouth was improv, but he knew where the scene was going; ‘That boy is a P-I-G pig!'” Matheson recalled.
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He also revealed that the scene where D-Day “plays” his throat like an instrument in the film was improvised…
15.
…and so was Bluto smashing the guitar.
16.
Gene Wilder’s hilarious “you know…morons” line from Blazing Saddles was also reportedly improvised.
17.
As is the iconic gum line from They Live. Roddy Piper explained, “It was one of those — ‘Roddy, you’ve got bullets on you, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got sunglasses, you go into a bank, you’re not gonna rob it, say something… action!’ ‘I’m all out of bubblegum.’ ‘Lunch!’ That was it. No more than that,” he explained, saying he wasn’t even sure what he meant by the line.
18.
Robin Williams reportedly improvised the hilarious line “It was a run-by fruiting” from Mrs. Doubtfire. “It wasn’t in the script,” Williams’ costar Pierce Brosnan revealed. “I get the beers, I’m walking back and thinking, ‘This is going to take forever to hit me on the head.’ The first one missed. And the second one — is history.”
19.
Williams was known for improvising, so it was no surprise that he also did so during Good Will Hunting. In one of the most memorable scenes, Williams’ character talks about his late wife and reveals she used to fart in her sleep. The dialogue was completely made up by Williams, and Matt Damon’s laughter was genuine. It even seems like the camera operator is laughing as the camera appears to wobble.
20.
Williams also came up with the film’s iconic final line. He tried out dozens of different lines, but when he said “He stole my line,” writer and star Matt Damon knew it was perfect, thinking in the moment, “Holy shit, what a line, how did we not think of that?”
21.
Han Solo’s famous response to Leia’s “I love you” in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was not originally in the script. Before shooting, Ford suggested changing the moment, which initially consisted of Leia saying, “I love you. I couldn’t tell you before, but it’s true,” and Han replying, “Just remember that, ’cause I’ll be back.” Ford objected to the scene as written, telling director Irvin Kershner that Leia should just say “I love you” as he passed by. “If she says, ‘I love you,’ and I say, ‘I know,’ it’s beautiful, and it’s acceptable, and it’s funny,” he suggested.
22.
Jack Nicholson was meant to say “You already have the truth” in this scene from A Few Good Men. Instead, he ad-libbed “You can’t handle the truth!”, which became the most well-known line from the film.
23.
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat” from Jaws, another of cinema’s most quoted lines, was also an improvisation. The line had actually become a running joke during production, in reference to producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown being stingy. “It became a catchphrase for any time anything went wrong,” writer Carl Gottlieb said. Roy Scheider kept throwing it in during filming, and the one that made it in was the now-famous scene after his character first saw the shark.
24.
This isn’t *exactly* improvised, but it was Harrison Ford’s idea for Indy to just shoot the guy with the sword in Raiders of the Lost Ark. “The sequence where Harrison is battling the [black-robed] swordsman and pulls out the gun, and shoots the swordsman, was a compromise that I made on the day that Harrison wasn’t feeling too well,” director Steven Spielberg revealed. Ford was meant to film an epic “whip against the sword” fight that had been fully planned and rehearsed. However, he came down with dysentery and wasn’t able to leave his trailer for long; he also felt the scene distracted from his character trying to save Marion. He suggested to Spielberg, “Why don’t we just shoot this sumb***h?” Spielberg apparently replied, “I was thinking that, too!”
25.
Another iconic Indiana Jones moment was also unplanned. Henry’s “she talks in her sleep” line in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was improvised by Sean Connery. In an interview, actor Julian Glover stated that Sean Connery’s iconic line made everyone on set crack up. “They had to stop filming,” he revealed. “Everybody just fell on the floor and Steven said, ‘Well, that’s in.'”
26.
In Zoolander, Ben Stiller had actually forgotten his line after JP Prewitt explained why he was using male models, so he just repeated his last line again. The actor playing Prewitt, David Duchovny, ad-libbed a reply, and the hilarious moment ended up in the film.
27.
In Wayne’s World, at one point, Dana Carvey, as Garth, asks Mike Myers’ Wayne if he’s ever found Bugs Bunny as a girl attractive. This was an ad-lib, and Myers’ guffawing laughter is real.
28.
In The Wolf of Wall Street, Matthew McConaughey kept beating his chest and humming before takes of the restaurant scene as a relaxation exercise. Leonardo DiCaprio suggested he bring it into the scene, and it made it into the final cut.
29.
Speaking of McConaughey…Matthew McConaughey came up with what would become his own tagline as an actor: “Alright, alright, alright.” He first uttered the phrase in Dazed and Confused and got the idea from listening to a live recording of the Doors while in the car and hearing Jim Morrison say “Alright, alright, alright, alright” between tracks. McConaughey (who wasn’t even initially supposed to be in the scene) used each “alright” to represent one of the tenets of his character: rock and roll, getting high, and his car.
30.
One of the most quotable lines from Alien is “Game over!” Bill Paxton actually came up with that line himself (though it was in rehearsals and not while they were filming). “‘Game over, man!’ was really the background of the character.” Paxton described. “I figured he was kind of the enlisted version of Gorman, who was the officer [played by] Bill Hope, who probably came up on video games. Back in those days, … at the end of your quarter, it would always be ‘Game over’ [on the screen]. So I wondered if anyone had ever used that [line] because it was kind of good. I had no idea it would catch on.”
31.
The “tears in rain” speech from Blade Runner was partly improvised. Actor Rutger Hauer was given a much longer speech to say, but he rewrote and improvised a shorter version. In particular, he came up with the “tears in rain” line, which is perhaps the most famous line from the entire film.
32.
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Malfoy’s line, “I didn’t know you could read,” was an ad-lib from Tom Felton — he’d forgotten his real line.
33.
Also, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Jason Isaacs and Daniel Radcliffe came up with the lines in their exchange near the end of the film on the spot. Isaacs called Harry’s reply of “Don’t worry, I will be,” his favorite line in the franchise.
34.
The famous Midnight Cowboy scene where Ratso slams his hands down on a taxi that almost hits him and yells, “I’m walking here!” happened by accident. They didn’t have the money to create a full set with extras, so they used a “stolen shot” — using a hidden camera on a real street. At one point the characters cross the street — they had rehearsed and timed the dialogue so they could cross when the signal was green. But in the first shot, a car ran the light and almost hit them. Staying in character, Ratso improvised, “I’m walking here!” They did reshoot the film with an extra driving a car to recreate the moment, which is likely the shot that ended up in the film.
35.
There was no dialogue written for the famous “You talking to me?” scene from Taxi Driver. Director Martin Scorsese asked Robert de Niro to just say something to himself in the mirror. “He kept saying, ‘You talkin’ to me?'” Scorsese continued. “He just kept repeating it, kept repeating it … It was like a jazz riff. Just like a solo.” De Niro said he had no idea how famous the line would become. “You never know with any of that stuff. You just did it.”
36.
Barkhad Abdi improvised the famous line from Captain Philips, “Look at me. I am the captain now.” He described the moment on Today. “I became the character. I tried to get to be that guy for that moment…I had to come out with all I got. I used a lot of imaginations.”
37.
In How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch was supposed to knock over everything on the table when he pulled the tablecloth. However, Jim Carrey accidentally performed the trick flawlessly, and everything stayed where it was on the tab, resulting in Carrey improvising and pushing everything off.
38.
In Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter isn’t meant to drop the orb in the scene where it slips from his hand and he quickly catches it. Director James Gunn initially thought this was an accident, but he kept in because it was funny. Chris Pratt later revealed that he’d improvised the moment, calling it a “hundred percent intentional.”
39.
And finally, Robert Downey Jr. came up with his famous “I am Iron Man” line at the end of Iron Man, which arguably changed the trajectory of the entire MCU. Tony was meant to have a whole speech, but Downey Jr. felt like this was more in character.
What’s your favorite improvised movie moment? Let us know in the comments!
