Actors Exposed Their Special Talents, Then Writers Put It Into Their Shows

Remember the episode of Friends where Joey needs to learn French for an upcoming audition? Well, if not, we can remind you that it was a season ten one that saw the hapless Italian-American hilariously fail in his attempts to learn the language. Joey enlisted the help of a certain Phoebe Buffay, who proved herself to be surprisingly adept with the lingo.

What you might not know is that this proficiency extended to the woman who played Phoebe, Lisa Kudrow. Yes, Kudrow didn’t need to swot up on French for the episode at all, and was, in fact, chosen by the writers to teach the language to Joey. How come? Well, Kudrow has been married to a Frenchman called Michel Stern since 1995, having met back in the 1980s. All that means she’s well versed en Français. Très bien, Mademoiselle Kudrow!

One of the most beloved scenes in Stranger Things is the “Master of Puppets” sequence, in which Eddie Munson performs the classic Metallica song. It was handy, then, that actor Joseph Quinn was already a talented guitarist. He told Collider, “I played guitar since I was very young, so… I had a foundation there. When I read the scripts… I went out and bought a guitar and manically started learning ‘Master of Puppets.’”

Quinn continued to Collider, “On the day, me and Gaten [Matarazzo] just got up on top of the camper van, and just got into it. It was very fun. I played most of it. We got a kind of black belt metal guitarist [Aiden Fisher] to come in and do the solo because I’m a human being.” The other guitarist’s hands were used on-screen for the close-ups.

Undoubtedly the single most memorable thing about the supernatural TV show Bewitched was Samantha’s iconic nose wiggle. That snout shuffle would be used to cast spells on people and cause mayhem. But where did the idea for it come from? Well, from the then-husband of actress Elizabeth Montgomery, as it turns out. He was William Asher, the director of the show.

Yes, a book on Montgomery that was written by author Herbie Pilato claims that Asher decided to add his then-wife’s unusual quirk to the plot of the show. For some reason, Montgomery used to move her nose in such a manner whenever she felt uncomfortable or nervous. Asher liked it, and incorporated it into the series. In case you’re interested, the actress performed the trick by shuffling her lip before moving her nose.

Anya Taylor-Joy is a quirky and talented actress who’s widely seen as an up-and-coming star. But there’s one thing that she does in the film Emma that really sets her apart from her peers. Yes, Taylor-Joy learned on the set of the Jane Austen adaptation that she had the ability to make her nose bleed on cue. Really.

Taylor-Joy revealed what happened on the set of Emma to The Guardian. Taylor-Joy remarked, “I’m like Liam Neeson in Taken, in that I have a very particular set of skills that would render me useless anywhere else other than in the acting world.” The star’s on-cue nosebleeding ability apparently pleased the director, Autumn de Wilde, who had been prepared to use fake blood.

Keanu Reeves has been a big Hollywood star since the early 1990s, but there is a point in every actor’s life when they’re trying to make it. Luckily though, Beirut-born but Canada-raised Reeves landed a role in the 1986 ice hockey drama Youngblood. And it was for the most part due to his impressive skills in the sport.

Yes, Reeves starred as a goaltender in his youth — even earning the nickname “The Wall” due to the difficulty opponents had of smashing the puck past him. He was scouted by a major junior club but turned it down to pursue his Hollywood dream. Anyway, his skills in ice hockey wouldn’t be wasted, as after a few minor TV roles he was selected to play a goaltender alongside Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze.

Remember the episode of One Tree Hill in which Haley James Scott first starts singing with Chris Keller? Well, it occurred in season two’s “Truth, Bitter Truth.” But you likely don’t know that Bethany Joy Lenz’s singing story arc only came about by sheer accident. In fact, it wasn’t initially going to be the case that Haley would tour with Chris.

So, what happened? Well, producers heard Lenz harmonizing to herself on set, and were blown away by her vocal ability, and they decided to introduce the aforementioned storyline to showcase her talents. Lenz would then embark on a One Tree Hill singing tour and told TODAY, “I was probably singing before I could talk. Musical theater is my passion. If I could afford it, I would just do dinner theater and live a simple life.”

One of the coolest episodes of Criminal Minds is arguably the season four episode “Pickup.” This sees Spencer use his charm and magic tricks to woo an attractive female bartender. He distracts her with a supposed drawing of a wanted criminal, before it emerges he’s somehow placed his phone number behind her barrette.

This particular scene was created by the producers of the show when they discovered that actor Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Spencer, was very handy with such tricks. Gubler told The West Australian, “I grew up in Las Vegas [and] I wanted to be a magician when I was a child. Then I found the magic of filmmaking and loved acting in my own stupid movies.” At least he got to showcase his talent in Criminal Minds, though!

Daryl Hannah put in a fine performance as Pris in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller Blade Runner. But did you know that Scott rewrote a fight scene to showcase her gymnastic abilities? Well, Hannah had trained as a gymnast prior to the movie, and she alerted the director to this fact when he was illustrating what the fight scene with Harrison Ford’s Deckard entailed.

Hannah told Empire, “When Deckard first comes across [Pris] in the script she was hanging from some rings, but I told Ridley that I could do stuff on the rings and on the parallel bars. He said, ‘Can you show me what you mean?’ So I did some gymnastics for him, then he asked me to do it again in my audition.” Hannah continued, “The other girls auditioning didn’t have that in their concept of the character. [So Scott] rewrote the scene based around that idea.” Cool!

Jodie Comer is a talented actress, and the Englishwoman shows that very clearly in the TV series Killing Eve. A clear example of her talent is how her character Villanelle nails numerous different accents, from Scottish to American, and Russian to Australian. So, how come the Liverpool-born actress can seemingly pull off such an array of accents with apparent ease?

Comer revealed all at the show’s season two premiere. Speaking about her penchant for accents, she said, “It comes from growing up. Me and my dad, if there was an advert with a silly voice on, we’d always impersonate it around the house just joking around.” Comer continued, “When I’m doing my own accent, I find it harder to separate myself from the character. I don’t know why.”

At one point in the second episode of Glee’s third season, Kurt Hummel is shown wielding sai swords in a lively musical performance. That episode, which was entitled “I Am Unicorn,” is notable for the fact that it was rewritten to showcase actor Chris Colfer’s obvious talent with such weapons. But where did that penchant for swordplay come from?

According to Colfer, it came from growing up watching a certain TV show, which featured a sword-wielding heroine. Speaking to NPR, Colfer said, “I was a really big fan of Xena: Warrior Princess when I was a kid. Gabrielle had the sai swords and I was like, ‘I wanna do that!’ and just really wanted to learn. So the first job I ever got, I used that paycheck, which was about $20, and bought me some swords.” Awesome!

The 2017 horror-thriller Get Out would make Daniel Kaluuya a star. His performance earned rave reviews from critics, and the then-little-known actor became a Hollywood big hitter very quickly. Plus, the film allowed him to show off an incredible skill. Yep, Kaluuya was able to make himself cry on command. That apparently impressed the film’s producers and they duly cast him in the role.

So, how did Kaluuya do it? Well, he revealed how he acquired the strange ability to Hot Ones, and more specifically what he thinks about to achieve the effect. He said, “Sometimes you do [an] emotional memory. For me, it’s color. When it’s a mad situation, I remember the color I was wearing. The color would trigger me.” Interesting!

There’s a memorable scene in the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love in which Jacob wins over Hannah with a Dirty Dancing-style lift. But this famous moment wasn’t originally going to be in the script. In fact, it was only put in after Ryan Gosling, who plays Jacob, revealed that he had used the technique in real life.

Yes, Gosling effectively dropped himself in it by revealing his moves to the film’s directors, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, and scriptwriter, Dan Fogelman. Requa told Entertainment Weekly in 2019, “Me and Glenn turned to each other and said, ‘Okay, that’s going in the movie!’ [Gosling is] like, ‘No you can’t put that in the movie.’ We put it in, much to his chagrin.” Cruel!

There’s an episode of Legacies in which Josie suddenly talks some Japanese to Kurutta, a samurai who is possessed by a demon. It’s kind of fittingly called “Since When Do You Speak Japanese?” because the show’s producers hadn’t previously been aware that actress Kaylee Bryant could speak the language. It was only after they found out about her skill that it was added to the script.

Bryant later told BuzzFeed what happened. The actress said, “I spoke Japanese a few times on Instagram Live and one of our writers, Penny Cox, saw me… and immediately went to Brett [Matthews, the showrunner] and was like, ‘We need to make this happen somehow.’And then all of a sudden, I had a script in my hands. So it was a surprise, but a fun one.”

If you’ve seen the movie Last Chance Harvey, then you were most likely impressed by Dustin Hoffman’s apparent skills on the piano. Well, the truth is, Hoffman actually has a long history of tickling the ivories. Indeed, as he admitted to Parade, rather than becoming an A-List actor, his initial dream was to become a jazz pianist.

However, his parents kicked back against his love of jazz, and he didn’t wind up pursuing it. But decades later, he got the chance to put his skills on show in the movie Last Chance Harvey. It was written for Hoffman, and his character is a man who was also thwarted in his quest to become a jazz pianist. In the film, he performed a self-penned song entitled “Shoot the Breeze,” which Hoffman wrote years earlier, with lyrical help from Bette Midler.

If you’ve watched Pretty Little Liars enough, you’d have surely noticed that Mona has a decent set of pipes on her. Indeed, the character has been given numerous chances to show off her vocal talents in the series, such as in the season five episode “A Dark Ali,” when she belted out Sara Bareilles’ “Gravity.” These moments were added by the writers and producers because of actress Janel Parrish’s formerly secret talent.

Oliver Goldstick, an executive producer of the show, revealed to Entertainment Weekly, “All of [the cast members] have incredible hidden talents and singing happens to be one of them. And I thought it was a shame that we didn’t utilize that, and [thus] we found a way to platform it in one of the episodes in the last ten.” Good decision!

The late Steve McQueen was the epitome of cool, which was especially evident in the movie The Great Escape. In that 1963 classic, McQueen is shown zooming away from a prisoner of war camp on his 1962 British-made Triumph TR6R motorcycle. But did you know that this epic sequence was only added at the legendary actor’s insistence?

It’s true. McQueen’s character, Hilts, the Cooler King, was originally going to flee the POW camp by train. And that wouldn’t have been half as exciting. A good job, then, that McQueen used his star power to get his way, and instead the character famously escapes by motorcycle. The former pro-racer nudged director John Sturges into letting him showcase his motorcycle skills, and one of the greatest on-screen chases was born.

In the second half of season three, Shadowhunters featured a remarkable dancing scene. It involved Magnus weaving elegantly into Alec’s embrace in a memorable segment. The scene — similar to a season two episode in which he dances with Dot — was added by the writers based on the dancing talents of Harry Shum Jr., who plays Magnus. He’s one half of the “Malec” duo — as many fans call them — alongside Matthew Daddario, who plays Alec.

Well, as it turns out, Shum Jr. has quite the history in the field of dancing. He was a pro who once toiled as a backup dancer for the likes of Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, and Beyoncé. Of course, Shum Jr. showed off his dancing chops in Glee too, in which he played Mike. Daddario was apparently less keen on the scene, though, and Shum Jr. told TV Guide that he turned white when he heard about it!

There’s a memorable scene in The O.C in the eighth episode of season two. The episode, titled “The Power of Love,” finds Sandy singing a song called “Don’t Give Up On Me” to his better half, Kirsten. Sandy is onstage when he picks up the mic and surprisingly hits all the right notes. But was it all that surprising? Perhaps the writers and producers knew something we viewers didn’t?

The actor who played Sandy, Peter Gallagher, is actually a Tony-nominated singer who has performed in musicals on Broadway. He revealed what happened with the scene to Billboard, stating how show creator Josh Schwartz told him that he had to have him sing on the show. “And my response was, ‘That’s crazy. That would be so embarrassing,” Gallagher said. “Who wants to hear the song stylings of Sandy Cohen?’” Erm, quite a lot of people, actually, Peter.

Tom Holland seems such a perfect fit for Spider-Man, so it’s interesting to learn how he got the hop on the competition and won over the film’s producers. The answer, for the most part, is his extensive dancing and gymnastics background. Holland starred in the stage production of Billy Elliott, and, as it turns out, is as flexible as they come.

Holland told the Associated Press that he deliberately looked to illustrate his aptitude for gymnastics when auditioning for Spider-Man. He said, “They gave me two scenes… and I basically did like a somersault into frame, and then a somersault out of frame, because I was like, ‘They may never see this, but if they do, I need them to know that I’ve got some gymnastic abilities and stuff.’” Smart thinking, Tom!

The 19th episode of The Office’s second season is called “Michael’s Birthday,” and it has a few scenes set at an ice skating rink. Interestingly, this plot was penned specifically with Steve Carell in mind. You see, the actor behind hapless boss Michael Scott is quite the skater in real life, and once hoped to reach the NHL. Jenna Fischer — Pam in the series — revealed this to the Office Ladies podcast.

Fischer told the podcast, “Steve Carell is a very, very good ice skater. He played hockey growing up, [and] he played pickup hockey every week as an adult. The writers had on one of their cards up on the wall this fact about Steve being a good ice skater, and they had been looking forever for a way to incorporate it.” And incorporate it they did, presumably much to Carell’s enjoyment.