12 People Who Totally Broke The Law To Make Great Movies

2. David O Russell Allegedly Assault (And Grope) His Actors

According to leaks from his sets, David O Russell is very much of the difficult school of film directing, challenging his film stars by making the atmosphere unhelpfully volatile and throwing spectacular hissy fits thanks to a notoriously short fuse. The director is supposedly one of the more unhinged working film-makers, which almost ruined the production of Three Kings entirely when he attacked George Clooney and grabbed him by the throat.

Aside from that being a mistake in legal terms, it was also an error of judgement since Clooney went to town on him.

And when the Oscar nominated director faced criminal charges for touching his transgender niece's breasts in December 2011, it wasn't the first time: one set visitor to the I Heart Huckabees shoot from the New York Times reported some seriously odd behaviour noting that Russell was fond of stripping down to his underwear, rolling on the ground and dancing and most worryingly of all "rubbing his body up against the women and men on the set."

He also apparently liked to grope Mark Wahlberg, which is a pretty steep price to pay for igniting his career.