# Director/Actor Rivalries

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-actor-rivalries/953125>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [October 24, 2021, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-actor-rivalries/953125 "2021-10-24T23:15:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-actor-rivalries/953125/21 "2021-11-01T16:56:39Z")

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> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> > [@Loach](#):
> >
> > … It’s a shame he was perfect in the role.
> 
> Yeah, sometimes the best person to play a prickly cantankerous contrarian is a prickly cantankerous contrarian.

What a range!

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**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-actor-rivalries/953125/22 "2021-11-01T22:54:40Z")

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> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#):
>
> Amazing (and indeed, embarrassing) how, over the years, factoids and various bits of info can get mixed up

If anyone claims that never happens to _them_, you know you’re dealing with a liar. 🙂

> 

> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> What a range!

Indeed–explaining his ubiquity at every Academy Awards ceremony. (Well, in his own mind, possibly.)

Anyway, on to other director/actor conflicts: _Psycho_ has been a shown a lot recently, given the time of year, and it’s always a reminder that Alfred Hitchcock did NOT forgive Vera Miles for getting pregnant and dropping out of _Vertigo_. Her costumes in _Psycho_ set the standard for “dowdy”—reportedly at Hitchcock’s insistence.

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**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-actor-rivalries/953125/23 "2021-11-03T21:42:14Z")

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Paul Thomas Anderson and Burt Reynolds on the set of Boogie Nights.

Hell, Burt Reynolds vs. _everyone_ on the set of Boogie Nights.

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**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-actor-rivalries/953125/24 "2021-11-03T22:02:45Z")

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Not really a rivalry, but a wonderful inside joke.

In 1956, Alec Guinness was making his first American movie in North Carolina, and was given a tomahawk as a gift from a local Native American. At the hotel where the cast was staying, he bribed a porter to hide the tomahawk in his co-star’s bed, Grace Kelly. Over the next 26 years, the tomahawk was traded back and forth between them a few times, always surreptitiously, and with neither one ever confronting the other.

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**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-actor-rivalries/953125/25 "2021-11-11T18:32:34Z")

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I read that De Niro had to direct Brando’s scenes.

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