10 Movies Scenes That Genuinely Terrified Actors

With the amount of Scorsese and Kubrick collaborations they share between their illustrious CVs, no one could question Leonardo DiCaprio or Jack Nicholson’s commitment to their craft and their willingness to go the extra mile for a scene in pursuit of the perfect take. Leo finally got his Oscar for The Revenant, for God’s sake! And that’s not to mention the hell Nicholson himself went through in the snow a quarter century earlier as the demented Jack Torrance.

That said, sometimes your colleagues just get in their heads that you’re slacking and are convinced you could be pushed to do a better job if given a little encouragement. At least, that must have been the mindset which saw Scorsese let Nicholson pull out an unscripted gun whilst lecturing a nervy DiCaprio midway through the Boston crime epic The Departed.

The shock in DiCaprio’s eyes during the scene is entirely real. Though the actor was aware that Nicholson would be allowed free rein to improvise, he had no idea that a deadly weapon was about to be thrust in his face during filming, and the subsequent terror makes for a scene as gulp-inducing as DiCaprio’s reaction.