10 Movie Scenes Where Actors Weren't Faking

Quentin Tarantino is known for his hands-on approach to filmmaking, generally refusing to use a second unit and getting stuck-in on-set with the actors, one eye to the viewfinder, the other on his carefully constructed script; ad lib at your peril!

But sometimes he takes this a little too literally. At least that's the case with 2009's Inglourious Basterds.

During the filming of the scene where international actress turned Allied spy Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is choked to death by SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), things just weren't coming together as planned. Tarantino felt Kruger's response to a loose pair of hands around her neck looked too filmic, too fake, too ordinary, with no bulging blood vessels, red face or teary eyes. His solution? That he choke her out instead – for real.

Trusting that she was in a good pair of hands, Kruger consented to go ahead with it, and the close-up of her face in the final cut is the real deal: Tarantino's very own mitts choking the life from one of his leading female stars.

Though this move has been a controversial topic in the years since, both director and star maintain that it was consensual and worthwhile, and the proof is in the pudding.