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19 TV And Movie Lines That Were Totally And Surprisingly Improvised By The Actor

Robert Downey Jr. really helped shape the whole future of the MCU with one line.
by Jess Goodwin Contributor
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There's nothing like finding out one of your favorite moments in a TV show or movie was improvised, so here are some of the best unscripted lines from Friends, Fight Club, the MCU, and more.

@fallontonight / NBC / Via giphy.com

1. “You fuckin’ hit me with the phone, dick!” —Scream

View this video on YouTube Dimension Films / Via youtube.com Matthew Lillard said this after the phone slipped out of Skeet Ulrich's fake-bloody hands at the end of Scream and hit him in the head.He also ad-libbed, "My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me."

2. “You hit me in the ear! Ow, Christ, why the ear?” —Fight Club

View this video on YouTube 20th Century Fox / Via youtube.com This was another authentic reaction to an accidental on-set injury. When Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were filming their first fight scene for Fight Club, Norton hit Pitt in the ear for real."[David] Fincher came up to me and said, 'Hit him, connect with him somewhere,'" Norton told Jimmy Fallon. "I didn’t know what to do, and I hit him in the ear."

3. "Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the thing up here, and it says here you could have 'network connectivity problems.'" —Parks and Recreation

View this video on YouTube NBC / Via youtube.com Chris Pratt improvised this line in Parks and Recreation, infuriating executive producer Michael Schur in the process. "I’m not kidding — as a writer, it made me furious," he said at the 2012 Paley Fest. “... The camera happened to be on him, he did it once, and I think it’s the funniest joke that’s ever been on our show."

4. The Snake Juice scene —Parks and Recreation

View this video on YouTube NBC / Via youtube.com This time the whole cast got in on the ad-libbing. The scene where everyone's wasted off Snake Juice and talking directly to the camera was all an improvised attempt to get a laugh out of Amy Poehler, who directed the episode.

5. "Fe-he-he-he-heeny!" —Boy Meets World

View this video on YouTube Buena Vista Television / Via youtube.com Yep, that's right — the iconic Feeny Call was Boy Meets World star Will Friedle's creation.He told Cosplay & Coffee: "You know the Feeny call really started by it just saying 'Mr. Feeny' in the script and I kind of took it from there to where it expanded to be nine minutes long."

6. "I don’t wanna go." —Avengers: Infinity War

Marvel Tom Holland revealed that the Avengers: Infinity War line came about because of an acting technique he uses. "If I’m trying to cry is I’ll say a phrase over and over again," he explained. "So, for example, if I was in a scene and I was talking to someone and the undertone of the scene was that I love them, I would say in my head, 'I love you so much, I love you so much, I love you so much, I love you so much.'"He added: "In that scene, it was 'I don’t wanna go' and I just thought I would say it out loud and it works."If by "works" he means "makes everyone cry every time they think about it," then yes, it does!

7. "I am Iron Man." —Iron Man

Marvel Holland's fellow Marvel star Robert Downey Jr. wasn't supposed to say this line at the end of the first Iron Man, but it ultimately had a big impact on the future of the MCU.Producer Kevin Feige told Deadline: "That success [of Iron Man's twist ending] inspired us [at Marvel Studios] to go further in the trusting ourselves to find [a] balance of staying true to the comics and the spirit of the comics but not being afraid to adapt and evolve and to change things."

8. Oz and Willow's animal crackers convo —Buffy

The WB Executive producer Marti Noxon revealed on the Season 4 DVD commentary that everything after Oz's line, "You have the sweetest smile I've ever seen," was ad-libbed by Seth Green and Alyson Hannigan.

9. Robin Williams and Billy Crystal's convo —Friends

View this video on YouTube Warner Bros. / Via youtube.com Not only were the lines improvised, but the whole cameo was as well. During the filming of the Season 3 penultimate episode, Williams and Crystal were on a nearby set (presumably shooting Father's Day, which hit theaters the day after the episode aired). They stopped by the Friends set and were asked to film a quick scene, leading the two comedic legends completely to make up the story about Crystal's character sleeping with Williams' character's wife on the spot. No wonder the main cast was on the edge of their seats the whole time.

10. "Here's Johnny!" —The Shining

View this video on YouTube Warner Bros. / Via youtube.com Jack Nicholson's reference to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson almost didn't make it into The Shining because director Stanley Kubrick didn't get the joke.

11. "Hot damn!" —Brooklyn Nine-Nine

View this video on YouTube NBC / Via youtube.com On Brooklyn Nine-Nine, when Amy is late for work for the first time ever, the rest of the crew have fun speculating why. Even Captain Holt gets in on the action, and when his guess is correct, he lets out a very loud, very surprising, "Hot damn!" — which Andre Braugher improvised.

12. "I know." —The Empire Strikes Back

View this video on YouTube 20th Century Fox / Via youtube.com Han Solo was supposed to say, "I love you too," to Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back, but Harrison Ford (accurately) thought "I know" was truer to his character.

13. "How come he don't want me, man?" —The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

View this video on YouTube Warner Bros. / Via youtube.com This might be one of the saddest ad-libs of all time. Will says it after being abandoned (again) by his biological father, and Will Smith credits the moment to the encouragement he got from James Avery, who played Uncle Phil."James Avery was relentless on me to elevate. [He] wouldn’t give me a damn inch," Smith told Rap Radar in 2018. "He was the model for me. He just had that acting power that I wanted to have."
He added that while Avery was hugging him after the line, he whispered to him: "That’s fucking acting right there."

14. "My dad's dead? I'm not ready for this." —How I Met Your Mother

20th Century Speaking of sad dad ad-libs, DVD commentary for How I Met Your Mother revealed that Jason Segel didn't know Marshall's dad was going to die until he and Alyson Hannigan were filming the scene where Lily tells him.

15. That weird hissing sound Hannibal Lecter makes —The Silence of the Lambs

View this video on YouTube Orion Pictures / Via youtube.com In Silence of the Lambs, the noise Hannibal makes after telling Clarice Starling he once ate a census taker's liver with "some fava beans and a nice Chianti" was all Anthony Hopkins' idea.

16. "I'm keeping it real!" —Clueless

Paramount Pictures Murray ended up saying this in Clueless while having his head shaved because Donald Faison heard a neighbor's kid say it."Some kid in my neighborhood said, 'Just keep it real. Just make sure you keep it real,'" he told Vulture. "And I was like, 'Oh. That’s what the kids are saying now?'"

17. "I love lamp." —Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

DreamWorks Pictures I've lost track of how many times over the years I've heard someone recite this line from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and it's all thanks to Steve Carell, who threw the line in after director Adam McKay told him to add more lines to the scene.

18. "But why male models?" —Zoolander

Paramount Pictures After David Duchovny's character provides a lengthy explanation to this question, Derek blankly repeats it, resulting in one of the funniest moments in the whole movie.Even better — David Duchovny in turn improvised his own response of, "Are you serious? I just told you that, a moment ago."

19. "Sure. Where?" —Friends

View this video on YouTube Warner Bros. / Via youtube.com OK, here's one more from Friends. In the final scene, when they're leaving the apartment for the last time, Rachel asks if everyone wants to get coffee. Matthew Perry's ad-libbed response is a perfect reflection of Chandler and a great way to wrap up the series.

What's your favorite improvised line from a TV show or movie? Tell us in the comments!

This post has been updated.

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