Actors Who Had Violent Fights On Set

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You may be surprised to hear this, but a film set can be a pretty tense workplace. Whether you’re leading a crew of dozens while trying to spin millions in studio money into something resembling art, or you’re one of the many cogs in the elaborate machinery that keeps a film production on track to be effective and make deadline, there’s typically a lot on your plate when it comes to working on a set.

As it turns out, that includes some of our favorite stars. In some cases, it’s pushed them to throw punches. Physical fights on film sets tend to be the type of thing that go down in show business legend — and as such, many instances have differing perspectives from the parties involved about what actually happened. Still, whether it’s stress, ego clashes, or just the occasional need to blow off steam, there are plenty of corroborated stories about actors getting rough while filming.

Here are some of the wildest stories of actors who had violent fights on set.

The unruly spirit of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders,” an adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s novel about two young, warring gangs in middle America, seems to have rubbed off on Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise during production. The two were certainly friendly, but Lowe has recalled the boxing matches they would have in the hallway of their hotel. Obviously, it’s just a normal way for two bros to pass the time on a film set.

Explained by Lowe in 2024 on an episode of “The Rich Eisen Show,” these bouts were often treated like real sparring matches, complete with headgear and mouthpieces. Cruise, having bulked up for the film, would square off against the wirier, non-working-out Lowe. Still, Lowe seemed to hold his own, and their fighting reached a peak when he knocked Cruise into a daze. Cruise swiftly returned the favor, landing a blow that sent Lowe to the ground, completely knocked out. Perhaps an early indicator of why Tom Cruise approaches even behind-the-scenes moments with the same intensity that drives him to perform many of his own stunts, Lowe seems to fondly recall the incident today and speaks highly of Cruise’s dedication and competitive nature.

According to Sylvester Stallone in an interview with Ain’t It Cool News, Richard Gere was originally cast as Chico in The Lords of Flatbush, a role that ultimately went to Perry King in the Brooklyn gang drama that’s mostly about guys being dudes. But male testosterone was never going to be as chill as that setup implies — especially not once a stray bit of mustard got involved.

The Lords of Flatbush holds the rare distinction of being the only film possibly derailed by a mustard stain. Stallone and Gere didn’t get along from the start, with Stallone criticizing Gere’s ego and methody intensity on set. The breaking point came during a rehearsal break at Coney Island. Stallone, eating a hot dog in the back of a car, recalled: “[Gere] climbs in with a half a chicken covered in mustard… I said, ‘That thing is going to drip.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I said, ‘If it gets on my pants, you’re gonna know about it.'”

The mustard dripped. Stallone elbowed Gere in the head. Gere was replaced, and the rest is history.

Oliver Stone’s excessive melodrama about the titanic egos and pressures of professional football, Any Given Sunday, faced its own chaotic productio — including the NFL’s battle with Stone over the film’s controversial script. But the most notorious drama came from LL Cool J.

In The Ringer’s oral history of the film, cast and crew recall the escalating tension between Jamie Foxx and LL Cool J that culminated in a full-on brawl. According to Andrew Bryniarski, who played Patrick “Madman” Kelly, “LL Cool J said something disrespectful to Jamie and actually reached over Al Pacino’s face and gave him a smack… Jamie came back forward and he said, ‘If you want to do this, we can do this.'”

The first fight broke out then and there, with Al Pacino caught in the middle trying to break it up. The second came later, when, according to Bryniarski, Foxx was standing near a camera crane and “LL stalked him like a panther… and smashed Jamie’s head against the camera crane.” That incident turned into a melee, with cast members and Stone himself stepping in. Bryniarski pinned LL Cool J to the ground and told him to cool off. The worst part for Stone? The cameras weren’t rolling. He was quoted as saying, “What the f***? Why weren’t you f***ing rolling?”

Despite being co-stars in Michael Mann’s gritty LA heist classic “Heat,” an intermittent friendship couldn’t stop tempers from flaring between Tom Sizemore and Val Kilmer during the production of Antony Hoffman’s sci-fi “Red Planet,” released in 2000. Their incident was one fueled by two stars that had each developed individual reputations for being difficult to work with – Kilmer due to on-set behavior, Sizemore due to an ongoing battle with addiction that affected his demeanor and conduct.

In excerpts from Sizemore’s memoir, “By Some Miracle I Made It Out of Here,” which chronicles his struggle with drugs throughout his career, the incident is described mainly as a clash of egos. A riled-up Kilmer reportedly provoked Sizemore by saying, “I’m making 10 million on this, you’re only making two.” Sizemore, naturally, responded by hurling a 50-pound weight at Kilmer. Thankfully, he missed, and production made it to wrap day. Still, the troubled shoot casts a shadow over what turned out to be Hoffman’s only feature-length film, which was met with mediocre reviews after its 200 hours of footage were chopped up to hell and back.

Steven Seagal is a noted terrible person, with multiple sexual assault allegations, far-right authoritarian beliefs, and vocal support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So maybe it’s not surprising he initiated a violent encounter with John Leguizamo on the set of Executive Decision.

Leguizamo, for his part, used some now-outdated and offensive language when recounting the incident — the r-slur was unfortunately more common in mainstream conversation 15 years ago when he told the story on Q TV. Still, according to Leguizamo, he couldn’t help but laugh at Seagal’s over-the-top macho posturing when the star strutted onto set to assert dominance. Leguizamo was cast as Seagal’s master sergeant, but the dynamic clearly didn’t extend off-screen. “He Taekwondo’d my ass against a brick wall,” Leguizamo recalled, saying it completely knocked the wind out of him and left a bitter aftertaste even years later.

To be fair, this is Leguizamo’s version of events. But Seagal’s reputation precedes him, including being the biggest jerk while hosting “SNL,” and there are numerous other accounts of his violent behavior on set. The takeaway? If enough people say you’re an ass, it’s not hard to believe the stories.

Of all the incidents on this list, this one might be the most hotly disputed by the people involved. The story goes like this: On the set of John Hillcoat’s period crime drama “Lawless,” Tom Hardy and Shia LaBeouf got into an altercation that ended with Hardy knocked out cold. In a 2011 interview with Den of Geek, Hardy even said as much, “He knocked me out sparko. Out cold. He’s a bad, bad boy… He’s a scary dude.” Of course, this is said between fits of laughter, and you can practically hear Hardy’s dry British humor coloring the phrase “bad, bad boy.” After all, how could the much smaller LaBeouf have easily taken down the bulked-up Hardy, especially when Hardy was simultaneously preparing to play Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises” soon?

The “truth” came out later, courtesy of LaBeouf on “Hot Ones,” where he said, “It’s a bunch of bulls***.” According to him, the pair were in the habit of wrestling on set, as is apparently custom in testosterone-drenched film productions. In this particular instance, Hardy barged into LaBeouf’s place unannounced, where LaBeouf and his then-girlfriend were both naked. Hardy proceeded to pick up nude LaBeouf and sling him over his shoulder, and the two ended up wrestling in the hallway when Hardy took a tumble down the stairs. Hardy seemingly decided to have a little fun amending this story, “For the rest of the shoot, he told everybody I knocked him out, but that wasn’t the case,” LaBeouf said. Still, Hardy wasn’t wrong when he called LaBeouf a “scary dude.”

As one of the most legendary, mythologized clashes between a star and director to ever come out of Hollywood, there’s a lot of information floating around about what exactly happened between George Clooney and David O. Russell on the set of “Three Kings.” Collating it all together, it essentially boils down to this: Russell, who up to this point was largely an independent director working with tighter budgets, was accustomed to directing using his eccentric processes, including on-the-fly shot setups and script decisions. This working style caused a bevy of clashes with the crew of the Warner Bros.-backed production, leading to aggressive outbursts from Russell, with Clooney often attempting to act as a mediator between the director and whichever unfortunate crew member or extra was the target of his ire that day.

This allegedly culminated in a physical scuffle between Clooney and Russell after the latter “went nuts on an extra,” as explained by Clooney. An argument ensued as things began to escalate. “We started pushing against each other with our heads. So I got him by the throat. And I was yelling at him and he was screaming at me and we were at it.” Clooney had seemingly softened on his perspective of Russell over the years, before reviving the feud in a 2024 interview with GQ, “It’s not just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go do a really good film, like “Three Kings,” and I’m going to have a miserable f*** like David O. Russell making my life hell… It’s not worth it.” Maybe it’s all the abuse and sexual assault allegations against Russell that have Clooney incensed once again, but who’s to say?

You may not expect the lightly goofy humor of cult-favorite sitcom “Community” to be marred by on-set turmoil, but then you wouldn’t know the reputation of long-time comedy heavyweight Chevy Chase. By this point, in-the-know “Community” fans are well aware of the hostility between Chase and co-star Joel McHale (as well as the rest of the cast), the latter of whom experienced enough tumult with his older peer that he dedicated an entire chapter in his book, “Thanks for the Money,” to advising on how to physically fight the “Saturday Night Live” alum and National Lampoon star.

He knew enough to write a chapter about it because the two got physical more than once on the set of “Community,” with McHale aggravated by Chase’s self-righteous callousness. On an episode of “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum,” McHale explains that the fights would get “contentious,” and recounts one incident in which he got in particular trouble: “I dislocated his shoulder.” In response to comments made by Chase on “WTF with Marc Maron” about “Community” not being funny enough, McHale replies, “This was not a prison sentence…You were being paid a lot of money and getting free food all day long. So, you could just walk away.” 

McHale now seems to have steered Chase right out of that open door, as he’s seemingly barred him from participating in the upcoming “Community” movie, following his sudden departure from the show due to his toxic behavior, including calling co-star Donald Glover a racial slur.

This is another entry that has a bit of myth obfuscating the truth. It’s said that on the set of the 2001 “Charlie’s Angels” adaptation, co-stars Bill Murray and Lucy Liu came to blows over some insensitive comments made by Murray. Liu spoke up, and things got heated and physical. The story goes that Liu started aggressively throwing a flurry of punches at Murray’s chest. Of course, this sounds more like something her “Charlie’s Angels” character Alex Munday would do, and that certainly seems to be an element coloring in the extra, fabricated details of what actually happened on set. 

Lucy Liu addressed the incident on the Los Angeles Times’ “Asian Enough” podcast, where she acknowledges that even simply speaking up for herself was an act of courage because of her relatively unknown status in the film, when compared to big-name co-stars like Murray, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore, nevermind distributing a barrage of punches. Murray apparently began to “sort of hurl insults” at Liu, and the actress knew she couldn’t simply let his behavior go unchallenged. Liu said, “I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down.” Treat people how you would want to be treated, or you’ll be subject to a Hollywood legend that Lucy Liu beat the hell out of you.

What happens when two personalities who’ve already made this list for instigating intense on-set disagreements are thrown onto the same project? Well, they show up again — this time, battling each other. By now, it’s well-documented how Saturday Night Live alums Chevy Chase and Bill Murray got aggressive with each other backstage on the foundational sketch comedy show.

Broken down to the essentials, as told in books like Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller’s “Live from New York” and Doug Hill’s and Jeff Weingrad’s “Saturday Night,” Chase had returned to host “SNL” during season three after an extended leave through season two. After his departure, he was replaced by Bill Murray, who was often referred to as “the new Chevy,” the perfect nickname to rile up two men whose raging masculine egos seem to get them in trouble at every turn. Murray didn’t appreciate some rude comments Chase made toward Jane Curtin, who had taken over Chase’s slot on Weekend Update, and events began to spiral from there, with some assistance from John Belushi, who had been feeding Murray stories about Chase’s impudent nature.

The insults started flying during the lead-up to the show, and of course, just before Chase was set to open the episode as Gerald Ford, he burst into Murray’s room for a fight, one in which the two comedians reportedly didn’t land any actual punches. The two have since allegedly reconciled, maybe realizing they could join forces in being frustrating presences on set.

Did you know comedy legend Richard Pryor once pulled a gun on esteemed writer and director Paul Schrader? It happened on the set of “Blue Collar,” Schrader’s directorial debut following writing “Taxi Driver.” The film focuses on the struggles of unionized industrial autoworkers in the American Midwest.

The environment on set was understandably tense. After all, getting to the point where a star pulls a gun on his director doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The production was a high-stakes exercise in walking on eggshells, with three artists working under wildly different creative philosophies. Pryor’s co-star Harvey Keitel brought his usual intense commitment to the role, and Pryor, new to dramatic acting, relied on improvisation. Meanwhile, Schrader’s sense of direction only added to the volatility. The result was a perfect storm: Pryor pulled the gun after being asked to do too many takes, he and Keitel got into a fistfight, and the overall experience sent Schrader into a personal spiral that led him to reevaluate his future as a filmmaker — though, obviously, he would go on to continue an impressive filmmaking career, as well becoming a supremely incendiary film reviewer on social media. 

One of the most infamous stories of a physical brawl to happen during a professional film production is one that you can watch in full with your own eyes. Seriously, it’s on YouTube (content warning for potentially disturbing violence). The footage comes from the ever-singular Norman Mailer’s chaotic mockumentary “Maidstone,” in which Mailer plays a movie director named Norman Kingsley, who’s running for president while being shadowed by a documentary crew. Rip Torn plays his brother Raoul, who gets caught up in an assassination plot against Norman. 

The production was volatile from the jump, but everything came to a head during the final scene. Torn, seemingly still in character, legitimately attacked Mailer with a hammer blow to the head, apparently out of frustration with Mailer’s erratic direction. What follows is a real, unscripted fight. The two wrestle on the ground, with Mailer audibly trying to snap Torn out of it while Torn doubles down, eventually putting Mailer in a chokehold and trying to bite his ear off. Mailer’s horrified wife eventually intervenes, joined by the film crew, as Mailer’s children look on, audibly distressed. 

The aftermath is almost as disturbing, as Torn stares down Mailer with a deranged glint in his eye, completely self-assured in what he’s just done. The two men allegedly reconciled years later, but “Maidstone” remains a harrowing emblem of frenzied docufiction — and of two of the most unhinged provocateurs of the 20th century.