10 Behind-The-Scenes Screw-Ups That Created Iconic Movie Moments
8. Die Hard An Unfinished Script Made Hans Gruber Into A More Iconic Villain
Its a well-known fact to dedicated cinephiles that scripts dont always turn up on set in their complete form. In fact, a good number of films operate with remarkable fluidity when dealing with scripts, seeing it as more of a guideline than a concrete play-by-play. This can go very wrong see the writers strike-wracked Quantum of Solace for a reference.
The examples for this are legion, but my favourite is the original Die Hard. Director John McTiernan started his film with an almost-complete script, but found he was lacking a crucial scene where the villain and hero meet for the first time. Of course, Hans Gruber and John McClane do eventually meet in the films climax, but with all the urgency which surrounds that part of the film they didnt have space to let the scene focus on the characters. It left McTiernan with a headache he desperately needed this meeting to tick off a vital story beat, but couldnt figure out how.
Enter Alan Rickman. At some point in filming McTiernan found out that the RADA-trained actor couldnt just do a good American accent, he could do a great American accent. This most English of men could sound as American as apple pie, and McTiernan used this to plug that one vital gap, having Gruber meet McClane under the guise of an office worker.
The whole scene was remarkable, and elevated a good film into a great one. The tension surrounding when you think Gruber might stab McClane in the back was astounding, and it provided a platform for the villain to graduate from formulaic debonair bad guy into something much more era-defining. Considering it was all made up on the spot, thats pretty damn impressive.