5 Films With Ridiculous Detail You Didn't Even Notice

By now, most people are familiar with some of the great lengths character actors will go to nail a part. From Daniel Day Lewis surviving in the wilderness for weeks to get ready for Last of the Mohicans to Christian Bale shedding a third of his body weight for The Machinist, actors are known to do some really crazy things in the pursuit of movie-making. For the most part, this obsession with the role really contributes to the film's success, or at least is an obvious contribution on the part of the actor. Sometimes, though, an insane amount of effort is put into details that nobody in the audience will ever really notice or care about €“ and it's not just actors who are guilty of going over-the-top. The following actors, directors and even props crews went more than a little overboard to create scenes that make no real difference to the movie.

5. The props department used real bodies in Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now has one of the most notorious origin stories of any film. Most of the movie was made up on the spot, most of the cast was stoned or drunk during filming, and Francis Ford Coppola suffered a mental breakdown in the middle of directing the film. It shouldn't be a huge surprise, then, that the props department joined in the madness. During the filming of one scene, the crew filled up the set with dead rats, which were meant to add a spooky ambiance. The stench was enough to raise protests from the actors, who were then told about the other atmosphere-enhancing props they'd acquired: A whole stack of cadavers that were being stored in the props room. The bodies were sourced from a local cadaver supplier, who likely retrieved them from the wreckage of a natural disaster that hit the Philippines during filming. The original plan was to hang these bodies from trees in the jungle to help set the scene. This never made it into the film, though, as local authorities came to claim the bodies before they could be filmed. In a further parade of death, the scene with the water buffalo being slaughtered with a machete was entirely real. Dennis Hopper, who played the maniacal photojournalist, revealed at a guest lecture at a film school in New York that shooting on the set of Apocalypse Now was one of the most stressful experiences of his career. Indeed, the production run got so out of hand that Coppola nearly killed himself no less than three times before wrap-up.