And with recent(ish) news that in real-life Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint aren't really that close at all, well, it's a little bit disheartening, isn't it? Okay, so they probably don't hate each other, but it bursts that Hollywood bubble that so many of us want to believe in.
Well, it got me thinking about some of the other secrets that Hollywood tries to keep from us for whatever reason. Okay, so they probably aren't as extreme as the above opener, but I still found them interesting!!
6. The Talkboy
I spent a large part of my childhood believing that Kevin was using a real tape recorder, that the makers of the Talkboy were having a field day with the publicity and sales they must have gotten out of that film.
The Reality: Prior to making Home Alone, the Talkboy did not exist. In fact, the one used in the film wasn't real either, it was a dummy that didn't work at all. However, fans bombarded the film company with letters relating to the device, and the company set about bringing the Talkboy to life, and close behind it the Talkgirl one too!
5. Animation
On the other hand, with animated films the actors don't need to see each other, you don't need costumes to be made, or sets to be built. There's no one other than the animators to keep happy, right?
The Reality: According to Pixar, on one of their most productive days, their animators are able to create a total of three and a half minutes of footage. And that's on a productive day. So, assuming that they worked flat out every single day (which to be fair, is a little unrealistic, not to mention sadistic!), it would talk twenty five days (including weekends) to create a full ninety-minute feature. Factoring in the probably more frequent bad day, and weekends, it would probably take three months to animate the whole thing, and that's not including character and location design, storyboarding and editing it all together amongst a million other things.
4. The Hands
The Reality: During the scene where Jack paints Rose, you might think that Leonardo DiCaprio is the one painting Kate Winslet, however, this is an illusion, because he in fact, is not. The hands that we see drawing Rose's figure are actually those of Director James Cameron. The problem with doing this was that Cameron is left-handed whilst actor DiCaprio is right-handed, however, this was solved in post-production when the scene was "mirrored" in order to make it look like he was right-handed.
Using someone else's hands in writing and drawing scenes is actually incredibly common, for a variety of reasons such as: the actor can't draw or their writing is too messy, or even something more aesthetic like they bite their nails, and the character that they're playing probably wouldn't.
3. Attention Seeking
Their need for attention is surely the reason why the Paparazzi exist?
The Reality: Just because an actor chooses to work in film, does not necessarily make them a very good people persons, in fact research suggests that a large number of well-known Hollywood actors are in fact anti-social introverts. Take Jack Nicholson for example, perhaps one of the world's best-loved actors of the past three or four decades, well-known for his confident and loud characters that are full of personality and probably not afraid of speaking in public. However, in reality, Jack Nicholson hates doing interviews so much that he allegedly hasn't been on a Talk Show since 1971.
2. Love and Peace
The Reality: It's inevitable that different actors are going to have different styles in almost every aspect of the job, from the way that they work, to the way that they get into a specific role. Quite often, those differences can work well, and actors work nicely together. But at other times, personalities, styles and ways of working clash to such extreme levels that working together is just impossible, and it effects filming.
Whilst filming "Four Christmases", back in 2008, Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn discovered just how different their personality and styles really are. Vaughan is well-known for taking a "lighter" attitude to learning lines, and as normal, he preferred to improvise. Unfortunately, Witherspoon wasn't such a huge fan of the improvisation and so the pair ultimately clashed...constantly.
1. Sound
The Reality: Just because you are being made to believe that what you are hearing is someone walking in snow, because that is the image that is being conveyed to you, doesn't mean that what you are hearing really is someone walking through snow, at all. Quite often, the Sound Department have a whole variety of tools and equipment to create the sounds that you want to hear. For example, the sound of snow is probably something that has been frozen, being crunched up by hand. The sound of something ripping could actually be the sound of something slowly opening up the velcro on a wallet. Thunder could be sheets of metal.
The most commonly used props for sounds effects include gravel and sand. Not very exciting is it? And think: probably every sound that you hear in every film that you watch has been manufactured by the Sound Effects Team. You have to admit that that sounds like a truly awesome job!!