10 Times Actors Broke Character In Movies

These actors lost it during these scenes.

Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith Ewan McGregor
Lucasfilm

The most basic expectation of an actor is that they can manage to stay in character for the duration of a take that makes it into the final cut of the film - but sometimes that just ain't what happens.

Sometimes actors briefly slip out of character for a few scant moments, laughing when they're not supposed to - typically called "corpsing" in the business - or simply doing something their character absolutely shouldn't be.

When such moments sneak their way into a movie, it's usually because the director didn't notice during shooting or editing, or at least decided that the flub wasn't noticeable enough to get worked up about.

But the Internet being the Internet, of course people pick up on these things, as they scan every pixel of the screen looking for anything that could be termed a mistake.

Each of these 10 movies had a distinct moment, no matter how brief, where an actor's mask slipped and we saw the actual human being underneath.

Thankfully in many instances it only adds to the entertainment value of the scene, much as the filmmakers might still wish they caught it during editing...

10. Johnny Knoxville - The Ringer

Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith Ewan McGregor
Fox

Mid-way through the criminally underrated sports comedy The Ringer, Johnny Knoxville finds himself unable to maintain his composure when one of his co-stars drops one of the film's most gut-bustingly memorable one-liners.

Lynn's (Katherine Heigl) partner David (Zen Gesner) spins a lie that he took Steve (Johnny Knoxville) and his Special Olympian pals to the mall for ice cream, at which point Winston (Geoffrey Arend) shouts, "When the f**k did we get ice cream!?"

As Arend fires off the quip, keep your eyes on Knoxville, who promptly cracks up laughing, apparently because the line was improved by Arend on the spot. With that in mind, you can't really blame him.

And yet, the line is so hilarious that director Barry W. Blaustein decided to include it anyway, no matter that Knoxville technically blew the take. Thankfully, seeing him thoroughly lose it only makes it even funnier.

 
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.