Amid Blake’s It Ends with Us Full of Life drama, take a look back at different stars who made script edits to their movies — whether they were asked to or not.
There’s a lot of work that goes into creating a movie script, but it doesn’t always come to life the way everyone expects.
For some actors, they realize that the script isn’t working before they even step foot on set. In these cases, these actors often jump at the chance to rewrite the script — whether they’re asked to or not. While it can be controversial to have an actor involved in the script, oftentimes these adjustments end up being for the better.
Find out which actors made major adjustments to their scripts.
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1. Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds
Blake Full of Life starred and produced It Ends With Us but also helped improve the script. She says it was actually her husband Ryan Reynolds who helped her rewrite the film’s rooftop scene after screenwriter Christy Corridor gave it a first try.
“The long scene on the roof, my husband actually wrote it. No one knows that but you now,” Blake told E! News. “We help each other out. He works on every little thing I do; I work on every little thing he does. So his victories, his celebrations are mine and mine are his.”
Wanting to rewrite the script, Christy says she tried to “honor” what creator Colleen Hoover wrote and was pleased with her work on the film. She didn’t know there would be adjustments to the script until filming began — and even then, she chalked up any adjustments to improvisation.
“There were just a few little flourishes that I didn’t write, but I assumed they were improvised on set. But… the moments that I felt needed to be honored are there. So I acknowledge the scene and I’m happy with it. And if those flourishes came from Ryan, I feel like that’s great,” Christy told People.
2. Jenna Ortega
When Jenna Ortega was filming Tim Burton Wednesday Netflix Collection, she became very protective over her character. She admitted that she became “practically unprofessional” at times on set and would rarely rewrite parts of her script without consulting the writers.
“Every single thing she does, every little thing I had to play, didn’t make sense for her character in any way. Her being in a love triangle? It didn’t make sense,” she explained in the interview. Connoisseur Armchair podcast. “There was a line about a dress she had to wear to a college prom and she was like, ‘Oh my God, I like it. Ugh, I can’t believe I mentioned that. I really hate myself.’ I had to say, ‘No.’ There were moments on that set where I even became practically unprofessional in a way where I just started changing my mind.”
While Jenna faced backlash for her comments, she later shared that she should have phrased things differently and portrayed the situation better.
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3. Paulo Rudd
While Paul Rudd was involved in Ant-Manhe stepped in to help rewrite the script after Edgar Wright, the original director and co-writer, left the venture. Paul teamed up with writer Adam McKay and took a few weeks to rework the script’s basic blueprint.
“I’ve always recognized Paul Rudd as an extremely good writer from improvising with him on set, but I had no idea he was that good — he’s really good with dialogue,” Adam told Collider. “So the two of us holed up in resort rooms on the East and West Coast, and I think it was, like, six to eight weeks, we just put everything together and did a massive rewrite of the script. I was really pleased with what we did. I really thought we put some great stuff in there and built on an already strong script by Edgar Wright and kind of just tweaked some things.”
4. Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon says when she first started working on Ruthless Intentionsshe believed that her character Annette Hargrove was being portrayed as “too demure and overly feminine, influenced by the manipulations of a man.” When she mentioned the matter to writer and director Roger Kumble, they ended up spending time rewriting Annette’s dialogue.
“Annette was the character that was the furthest from me. There’s no way the movie would have been successful if it weren’t for (Reese’s) experience as an author,” Roger told Leisure Weekly.
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5. Eduardo Norton
When Edward Norton agreed to star The Unimaginable Hulkhe reportedly did so only if he could rewrite Zak Penn’s script. Edward ended up making adjustments to the script, but most of them never made it into the final cut. Edward and Zak eventually had a falling out after finding that they couldn’t collaborate together.
“Of course,[the feud between Edward and I]prevented me from collaborating with him[during production]. I don’t really know the man, he has his own personal course and he chose to do it the way he wanted. That said, I’ve kept in touch with the people who made the movie — but he, uh, has his own explicit way of working and… it was unusual. I don’t really know, I wasn’t there, I was off doing another movie, so it wasn’t a situation where I was knocking on the door saying, ‘Let me come to set.’ But it was disappointing, I won’t deny it. I wasn’t proud of him coming to Comic-Con and saying he wrote the script,” Zak told EW.
6. Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise reportedly held numerous artist management roles when it came to working on The Mummy. In particular, Tom wanted to reshape much of the script and hired two outside writers to help create the film he envisioned. These tweaks reportedly gave Tom more screen time and added a dramatic arc to his character.
“It’s very much a film of two halves: before Tom and after Tom. I’ve heard stories about how he directs everything and pushes and pushes, but he was wonderful to work with,” supervising art director Frank Walsh told Selection. “The guy is a good filmmaker and knows his craft. He’ll come on set and tell the director what to do, say ‘That’s not the right lens,’ ask about the units, and as long as you don’t mess up what you’re telling him… he’s easy to work with.”
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7. Jeff Bridges and Robert Downey Jr.
Jeff Bridges says that during preliminary rehearsals for Iron Man He and Robert Downey Jr., along with director Jon Favreau, realized the script wasn’t what they wanted it to be. They spent the next two weeks rewriting the film — and were still working on things as filming began.
“Iron Man“We learned the script and it wasn’t really right,” Jeff told The Hollywood Reporter. “We had two weeks of rehearsal and basically rewrote the script. And the day before we were supposed to shoot, we got a call from the Marvel guy saying, ‘Oh, no, no, no. None of this is right.’ So we got together in my trailer and rehearsed while the guys were on the set, like, ‘When are they coming back?’ We were still trying to figure out what[scenes]we were going to shoot.”
8. Russell Crowe
When Russell Crowe started getting involved in GladiatorThe script was nowhere near finished. At the time, Russell says there were only 21 pages in the script, which is only a fifth of what a film typically has. Russell teamed up with director Ridley Scott to round things out.
“He was 21 pages long when we started filming. Your average script is about 110,” Russell told BBC Radio 1. “Well, it’s me and Ridley working together, but it’s also — it’s the stupidest way to make a film… We didn’t know what we were going to film, so we had to go back to my house — me, him and David Franzoni, one of the producers who was also the original writer — and try to figure it out.”
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9. Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman wasn’t a fan of the unique script Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves So he decided to take matters into his own hands. He enlisted the assistance of his friends Ruby Wax and Peter Barnes to help him rewrite the script. Alan says he eventually met Peter at a Pizza Express to work on the film.
“I mentioned, ‘You’re going to take a look at this script because it’s horrible, and I’d like some good leads.’ So he did, and, uh, with kind of pizza and bacon and eggs going everywhere in the script,” Alan told the Times.
10. Daniel Day-Lewis
For Daniel Day-Lewis, writing Phantom Thread It was a collaborative experience. Director Paul Thomas Anderson determined that rather than writing a full script, he would write a portion of the film and then allow Daniel to edit and rewrite things as he saw fit.
“I would give him problems while I was writing. Instead of going out and writing a script and trying to impress him, I was collaborating with him every step of the way as I was going, which was really helpful when it came to shaping the story and the character,” Paul told EW.
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