10 Famous Movie Scenes The Actors Almost Ruined

9. Ripley's Basketball Skills (Alien: Resurrection)

Alien: Resurrection is an extremely hammy movie, with its weird human-alien hybrid monster, kooky band of mercenary survivors, and, of course, Ron Perlman hanging off a ladder by his feet and shooting a Xenomorph in the face with dual pistols. But even with all that, nothing is quite as corny as the famous basketball scene.

Included in the film as a means of showing off XenoRipley's newfound strength and reflexes, the scene ends with Sigourney Weaver throwing the ball over her head, landing a dunk with her back facing the net.

Despite the insanely low odds of pulling this off, the actress actually did it for real, but the shot that made it into the movie was very nearly ruined by Weaver's co-star Ron Perlman, who couldn't contain his excitement at her mad basketball skills.

A split-second after the ball landed in the net, Perlman smiled and said "oh f*ck" to the camera, and the actor was concerned that he'd ruined this one-in-a-million take with his reaction. Thankfully, upon watching the footage back, the crew found that the shot could still be used: all they had to do was cut away just before Perlman's outburst.

And that's exactly what they did. This is why, in the film, the scene cuts so quickly right after Ripley lands her shot - the filmmakers had to hide Perlman's overjoyed response.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!