8 Actors Who Were Confused While Filming Movie Scenes
3. The Entire Cast Had No Idea What Was Going To Happen During The Chestburster Scene (Alien)
From the very beginning, director Ridley Scott had an elaborate and rather cunning plan in mind for Alien's famous chestburster scene.
The moment where an extra-terrestrial creature violently rips its way out of John Hurt's body is one of the most famous scenes in sci-fi/horror movie history, but at the time, the rest of the cast had no idea what was going to happen, and that was because Scott told them as little as possible about the scene.
According to Sigourney Weaver (during a discussion with her fellow cast-mates), the script simply read "this thing emerges". And that was the extent of their knowledge.
While Hurt was being prepared for the scene, everyone else was left upstairs for hours, wondering what was going on. When they were finally called down, they found that the set was covered in plastic sheeting, and that the crew was dressed in protective clothing. Understandably, the actors were all rather confused at this point, a sentiment that was expressed by Yaphet Kotto during that aforementioned discussion:
"We were all wondering what the hell was going on. Why is the crew looking at us the way they're looking at us right now? Why are they wearing plastic shields?"
Their confusion persisted right up until the moment when the chestburster sprung from Hurt's body, at which point, Veronica Cartwright passed out, and everyone else was left in a state of shock. Well played Ridley. Well played.