A Clockwork Orange
Even outstanding and experienced directors like Stanley Kubrick can hit a brick wall sometimes. Well this happened while filming the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his friends break into a woman’s home and attack her. Kubrick didn’t love how the scene was coming out, take after take. Thus, he told McDowell, “Just do whatever you want.” That’s when McDowell broke out into the famous, “Singing in the Rain.”
A Clockwork Orange
Full Metal Jacket
Speaking of Kubrick, he adapted his own screenplay to the film, Full Metal Jacket. Things took a bit of a turn from his direction with R. Lee Ermey playing the drill sergeant. Actually, Kubrick knew that Ermey was the perfect fit after Ermey sent in a tape of himself going off on Marines. After Full Metal Jacket came out, Stanley Kubrick revealed that R. Lee Ermey improvised around half of his character’s lines.
Full Metal Jacket