Wonka and the Willies

I recently caught the “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” movie (the original) on Freeform (FF). And then, surfing the net, I stumbled on a Q&A with the person who played Mike TeeVee (from 4 years ago). In the Q&A, Mike says the cast did not rehearse the boat ride / tunnel scene (akin to how the Chocolate Room scene was unrehearsed) to capture candid reactions of the cast. However, we noticed that Charlie and Grandpa Joe did not act afraid at all. Does anyone know if they were “in” on the secret? Or, were they actually undisturbed by all the bizarre scenes in the tunnel?

I’m sure that the actors were told whether or not to act afraid.

Meaningless aside, “Wonka and the Willies” would be a good name for a band, probably a '50s-era boy band.

The story doesn’t sound at all likely. They weren’t really on a boat heading down a dark tunnel at high speed, you know. They were sitting on a stationary movie set. There’s no way they would have really been nervous. A truly candid reaction would have been bemusement.

There weren’t bizarre scenes in the tunnel tho, were there? There were a bunch of bizarre scenes spliced in after editing that viewers saw, but like Peter Morris said the actors were just on a boat maybe on a dark set with blinking lights.

What the cast wasn’t prepared for was Gene Wilder’s bizarrely menacing delivery (and by how dark the tunnel was) - the disturbing images were (as others have suggested) spliced in later.

Also the camera was always in just the right place to get reaction shots from the various characters. It must have been carefully planned, and the performers told how to react.

Another scene in the movie where the actors weren’t told how to react was when Wonka first appeared (where he lost his cane and did a forward flip). Being able to do that was one of Gene Wilder’s conditions for agreeing to play the part. He wanted the viewer to get the idea from the beginning that nothing about him was as it seemed.

Such trickery by directors is not uncommon. The actors think they know what will happen, the cameras are all set up, but the director has arranged for a surprise in order to get a more spontaneous reaction. One example is Alan Rickman in “Die Hard” who was expecting to be dropped on the count of three for his fall near the end of the movie - his reaction was enhanced by the fact that he was dropped at “1” (here’s the dir ector’s own account of doing so 'Die Hard' Director Deconstructs Bruce Willis' Legendary Roof Jump, Alan Rickman's Fall - BroBible)

As to the OP’s question, it may be just that Jack Albertson who was the oldest actor in that scene was less freaked out by Wilder, due to his experience, and was thus more reassuring to the actor who played Charlie.