23 Stories About Actors Being Just Like Their Famous Characters In Real Life That Makes Me Love Them Even More

1.One of my favorite behind-the-scenes Star Wars stories is about Mark Hamill shooting a scene with Harrison Ford because the way they handled it perfectly exemplifies their characters. Hamill was keeping track of the film's continuity and brought up a good point about how his hair should be wet and dirty after the trash compactor scene. Ford replied, “Hey, kid, it ain’t that kinda movie. If people are looking at your hair, we’re all in big trouble.”

2.John Rhys-Davies memorably played Gimli, the ornery, impatient, brutal (yet lovable) dwarf from The Lord of the Rings. And apparently, he was exactly like his character when it came to fight scenes and stunt doubles.

3.Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal really were as close as their characters on The Last of Us — they delayed filming by laughing during takes, and Ramsey would make inside jokes instead of the planned puns specifically to get Pascal to laugh.

In fact, Pascal said his favorite scenes were when he was riding with Bella, so that they could just chat while the wide shots were taken.

4.Similarly, Storm Reid and Zendaya really are close like sisters after appearing together on Euphoria — "She has become like my big sister. I'm able to reach out to her if I need anything, whether it's talking about 'growing up in Hollywood' or just things that normal teenagers are going through. If I ever needed advice, she's always there," Reid said in an interview.

5.It's no doubt that Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect fit for Tony Stark — like Stark, he had a partying past that he abandoned for a better life. But there's one detail that really proves no one else could've played Tony: and that's that Downey Jr. was the one who came up with the "I am Iron Man" line at the end of the film. He ad-libbed it during the moment, just like Tony decided in that moment to blurt it out.

"Tony Stark not reading off the card and not sticking with the fixed story? Him just blurting out ‘I am Iron Man?’ That seems very much in keeping with who that character is," Marvel lead, Kevin Feige said when speaking to Deadline about the film on its 10-year anniversary. "It just hadn’t been done in the comics before, but it was something very much in keeping with the comics character and what he could have done. I think it did inspire us on all the movies." The line, which was perfectly in character, changed the character's entire future, as well as the future of the MCU.

6.When Jenna Ortega auditioned for Wednesday, she was covered in blood (from shooting X) — which is exactly how Wednesday would prefer to show up to an audition.

7.Oh, and also, Ortega choreographed Wednesday's dance herself —using inspo from Siouxsie Sioux and '80s goths, just like Wednesday would've.

8.One of my favorite behind-the-scenes Harry Potter facts concerns Prisoner of Azkaban, when director Alfonso Cuarón asked the three main actors to write essays on their characters. Emma turned in 16 pages on Hermione, Daniel turned in what he felt was a very strong page on Harry, and Rupert didn't do it at all. His excuse? Ron wouldn't have.

9.Another Harry Potter one? In a perfect example of Tom Felton being just as conniving as his character, he lied about having read the books at his audition.

"It was an open audition fo all of the country, I must have been the only child out of 20,000 that had no idea what Harry Potter was which made it very hard, 'cause at the audition, they were asking all the children which scene they were looking forward to from the book to come to the film," Felton told George Lopez. "They got to about two boys away from me when I realized that I didn't have an answer for them, so the guy next to me said something about Gringotts and goblins, and I was like, 'Yeah, those Gringotts sound awesome!' The director saw right through me."

10.One last HP one — James and Oliver Phelps, who played the Weasley twins, would play pranks on set. In fact, they once pranked Rupert Grint by making him believe there was a whole choreographed dance number in the Yule ball scene that the entire cast knew except for him. "We were like, ”Do you know your steps? You know, right? You know, the routine? Like, we've all been doing a routine for, like, the past six weeks,' or something like that," James said.

Another prank they did involved convincing Rupert's stunt double he was going to be fired for partying too late. They also loved to prank each other, like when Oliver bid on an item in James' name at a charity auction, forced him to pay for it, and then gave it to him as a "gift."

11.Rob Lowe is more similar to his Parks and Recreation character than you might realize — particularly, in the use of his word "literally." In fact, Chris' love of that word was written into the script because Lowe used it when telling the show creators a personal story.

12.He's also a fitness aficionado just like his character — " I'm really, really, really physically active. I go berserk if I don't get to channel that physical energy. I get depressed, I get lethargic, I get unmotivated. I have to force myself to have proper rest days," he told Men's Health.

13.Speaking of Parks and Recreation — Nick Offerman really is incredible at woodworking, and he really can play the saxophone.

14.Heathers producer, Denise Di Novi (along with a few of the cast members), believed Shannen Doherty — who played Heather Duke — didn't know she was in a comedy — but Di Novi said this made the way she played the character perfect. Like Doherty, Duke took the events of the film deadly seriously.

15.As this Reddit post points out, Loki's defining trait in Thor is wanting everything his brother is easily given. In an example of life imitating art, Tom Hiddleston had actually auditioned first for Thor...before being given the secondary role of Loki.

16.It's no secret that Ryan Reynolds was the perfect choice for Deadpool — in fact, he campaigned for it to be made for years. Proving that they made the right decision, Reynolds has done many Deadpool-like things in relation to the film...such as stealing his costume and the "dead Logan" music box.

17.Oh, and also, in another example of Reynolds doing exactly what Deadpool would do, he was expelled from school for stealing a teacher's car as a part of an April Fool's prank. (Technically he and his friends simply moved the car down a block, but that's a felony in Canada).

18.In Superbad, Jonah Hill's character has a hard time containing his contempt for Christopher Mintz-Plasse's character...and in real life, it was very much the same way. Hill "hated" Mintz-Plasse right off the bat, calling him "really annoying" — apparently, he also insulted Hill in a bunch of improvs at his audition.

In fact, this tension was part of the reason why Mintz-Plasse was hired: director Judd Apatow revealed "Jonah said, ‘I don’t like that guy. I don’t want him doing it.’ And I said, ‘That’s exactly why we’re hiring him. It couldn’t be more perfect. The fact that it bothers you is exactly what we want.'”

19.Another actor to basically embody the role in some way in the audition alone is Matt LeBlanc — he had done a bunch of auditions to play the role of Joey on Friends, but for his final callback, he decided to go out and get drunk with his friends the night before.

He got so drunk that when he went up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he fell "face first into the toilet," and "a huge chunk of meat came off [his] nose." However, as this sounded like something Joey would do, it actually helped Leblanc get the job when he told the story at his callback the next day.

20.Rachel and Ross had a classic will they, won't they relationship on Friends...and as it turned out, they had the same thing IRL.

It took until 2021, but the two finally admitted during the Friends reunion special that they had a crush on each other while filming the show. Unfortunately, as they were always dating other people, nothing came of it.

21.Al Martino basically was his character in The Godfather — he had real-life mob connections that helped him get the role of a mobster in the film. You may remember that, in the movie, his character actually asks Don Corleone to get him a movie role, mirroring real life.

22.Bill Murray actually is really good at bowling, just like his character in Kingpin — in fact, the scene where he manages three strikes in a row? Murray really managed that (in front of a live audience, no less!) and the crowd's reaction is real.

23.And finally, in a similar example that proves Sigourney Weaver is just as badass as her Alien character, in Alien Resurrection she actually did make the shot where she throws the basketball over her shoulder.