8 Dick Moves Filmmakers Used To Improve Actors' Performances

6. Sean Penn Swaps Guns In The Middle Of A Scene

At Close Range is a crime drama from the mid-80s that's been largely forgotten despite high marks from critics and an all-star cast that features Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Kiefer Sutherland, and Crispin Glover. But it's a movie that at least one of those actors is unlikely to have forgotten about. In a scene that boasted a tense confrontation between Walken and Penn - father and son, respectively - Penn was supposed to pull a gun on his dear old dad and go off the rails, threatening to shoot him. But not feeling like he was getting the necessary reaction from Walken (whose resting facial expression can best be described as "dementia"), Penn decided to up the tension just a tad. According to Walken, Sean ran off set in the middle of the take and told the prop man, "Give me the other gun!" Considering how frantic he was acting, it was entirely possible he had grabbed a real gun. The director decided to keep rolling (ya know, as evidence for the police investigation into the murder of a high-profile actor), and Sean started sticking the "new gun" into Walken's face while screaming at him. In fact, it was still the same gun as before. No switch had really been made, but because the guy on the other end of the barrel had no idea, there was enough doubt to make for a, ahem, compelling reaction. The take with a genuinely nervous Walken is the one they ended up using. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmskDtxyMCs