Famous Movie Lines That Weren’t In The Script
Matthew McConaughey only had 30 minutes to prepare when director Richard Linklater made him a last-minute addition to a scene in his 1993 coming-of-age movie Dazed and Confused. McConaughey had been listening to a live recording of The Doors before filming started, and in between tracks, Jim Morrison repeated the word “alright” several times. Thus, the now-classic line, “Alright, alright, alright,” was born — during the actor’s first scene on film, no less.
McConaughey even dropped the line into his acceptance speech when he won the Best Actor Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club.
It’s the most famous line from Titanic, but “I’m king of the world!” wasn’t even in the script. Director James Cameron revealed that it was “made up on the spot” after several others lines didn’t work. He told DiCaprio, “All right, I’ve got one for you, just say, ‘I’m the king of the world,’ and just spread your arms out wide, and just be in the moment, and just love it and celebrate the moment.”
It’s the moment Star Wars fans had been waiting for: Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) finally admits her love for Han Solo (Harrison Ford) at the end of the 1980 sequel The Empire Strikes Back. According to the script, Han’s response was, “Just remember that, ’cause I’ll be back”.
But Harrison Ford knew it was awful, so he came up with a new line: “I know”. Even Fisher didn’t know he was going to say it. In a Reddit AMA, Ford didn’t exactly admit to the ad lib, preferring to describe it as “a suggestion”.
One of the most memorable quotes from the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, “I need a vacation” was yet another quip from habitual ad-libber Arnold Schwarzenegger. But it wasn’t a new line for the actor; he said it a year earlier in Kindergarten Cop, in which it was more fitting. Robots generally don’t need vacations, right?
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat“, the most famous line from Jaws — one of the highest-grossing movies of all time — wasn’t actually in the original script. According to writer Carl Gottlieb, “it was an overlap of a real-life problem combined with the dilemma of the characters onscreen.”
He told The Hollywood Reporter that it was an on-set catchphrase anytime anything went wrong, from lunch delays to camera issues. Actor Roy Scheider tried out the line in a few different scenes during filming until it finally stuck.
It’s impossible to hear the line, “Here’s Johnny!” without picturing Jack Nicholson’s maniacal face as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 movie adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel, The Shining. That’s a testament to the power of the line Nicholson made up on set.
Now, according to a Play.com survey of 10,000 people, it’s the scariest movie moment of all time.
Another of Nicholson’s memorable one-liners is “You can’t handle the truth!” from 1992 military courtroom drama A Few Good Men. The original line was “You already have the truth,” but Nicholson decided to change it — for the better.
It’s so iconic, it’s a line people quote when they don’t even know what they’re quoting.
One of the most classic movie lines in history wasn’t in the original script for 1942’s Casablanca. The line read, “Here’s good luck to you, kid”.
Humphrey Bogart changed it to “Here’s looking at you, kid” — something he said to co-star Ingrid Bergman when he was teaching her how to play poker offscreen. The phrase may derive from a poker hand that includes a king, queen and jack, as all three face cards are “looking at you”.
With master ad-libber Will Ferrell at its helm, it’s no surprise that Anchorman was full of improvised lines. One of the best is “I’m in a glass case of emotion!” — screamed by Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) from inside a phone box.
Ferrell even used the line during a public appearance at Emerson’s School of Communication, which he attended in character as the infamous mustached news anchor, telling President M. Lee Pelton, “This is a big moment for me. I’m literally in a glass case of emotion right now”.
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