30 Movie Extras That Ruined Scenes

Yet as with everything, there’s as much good as bad, and there’s no shortage of movies ruined by the extra actors who did not pull their weight in the pricey productions they were cast in. 

When everyone was wondering whether Eve would really shoot Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill character, one of the kids on the set saw it coming, covering his ears five seconds before the action happened. Talk about a spoiler alert!

In one scene, Ferrel meets with Delilah, an old friend from high school, and as they catch up, Delilah’s kids are snacking in the background. Weirdly, in one cut, the children are frozen, staring into space. That ruined the scene, and it was a tad distracting, to say the least. 

The rest of the school finds out, and as seen in this scene, one lad responds with unadulterated fury like he was given the role of a villain.

That was quite clumsy, and the film had to be changed to accommodate the blooper. George Lucas added a “bonk” sound effect to the scene 27 years later when he remastered the movie for a special edition release.

The extra happens to be Eldo Ray Estes, a makeup artist who decades later won four Emmys for his incredible work on As the World Turns. We now know he was always meant to be noticed. 

The muscular man in a black singlet clapping to the beat in a dancing scene is Jean-Claude Van Damme. It was his first movie role as an uncredited extra. 

In one scene, Scott’s team wins a crucial basketball match, and everyone’s cheering. But, if you watch the background performers, you’ll spot a girl in the stands who cheers so hard that her pants become unzipped, and she spends the rest of the scene awkwardly trying to fix it.

In a scene when Doc introduces Marty to his sons, his youngest gestures for the camera to come closer and points his fingers lower. We can only assume what he meant by that, but what’s shocking is that the editing team actually kept it. 

What’s worse, he wasn’t supposed to look at the camera, but the man couldn’t get himself to do anything but that. Wasn’t the food on his table appetizing enough?

In one scene in The Empire Strikes Back, while everyone was evacuating the kids, one man was busy saving an ice cream machine. It was such an iconic moment that the man got an action figure and a compelling backstory.

In one scene in the candy shop, a girl’s chin gets knocked when The Candy Man is lifting the counter hatch to let the children in. Luckily, she was barely injured and was mostly focused on getting the candy.

If you have an eye for details, you might have noticed a cheeky extra smiling during a pensive moment. Depending on how you perceive it, this might be a genius moment considering how different people react to tense moments. Even so, Nolan didn’t appreciate this, and he scrubbed him off the digital release.

A woman was asked to go get help for the injured coach, but instead of making haste and getting off-screen, she stopped mid-walk and stared directly at the camera. It was an odd blooper that had fans wondering what her deal was

This feeling probably came from the acting team as evidenced by this extra who wanted to show he was working. The man swept a chunk of air leaving fans in giggles in an otherwise serious scene.

In one scene, Lisa’s mother is seen walking into a room, saying “Hello” to no one in particular, then standing awkwardly with a deadpan expression. Meanwhile, a man is seen talking to himself in the background, gesturing as if having a deep conversation with an unseen person.

It’s a moment that’s hard to ignore, even amid the grandeur of the epic conclusion to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

During Doug’s 40th birthday celebration, Oswalt appeared in the background, motionless and with a deadpan expression for a full minute. Despite his lack of lines, Oswalt’s memorable appearance proves that sometimes the smallest details can make the most significant impact in a scene.

This mistake takes the viewer out of the moment and ruins the continuity of the scene. Despite this, the film remains a classic and an important milestone for both Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson.

As Blofeld pets the cat, it scratches his arm, causing him visible discomfort. This moment reminds us that cats are always going to be cats, even in the world of James Bond.

The extras were cast as martial arts students but couldn’t keep a straight face during the scene. Even while other students were stone-faced, they failed to do their job. The guy in the center didn’t even try to hide his laugh and turned the famous scene into a comical mess.

In a pivotal moment of Star Trek Into Darkness, a colossal spacecraft is obliterating residents of a futuristic San Francisco. While people run for their lives, this extra finds the whole idea amusing. He stands around in the background smiling with his enormous specs, making him hard to miss.

Everything about the scene was going well until an extra did a little too much. It appears he was overly excited about the action and threw himself down without even taking a hit. Talk about an out-of-place whooping!

A frustrated officer yells, “No more dead cops!” Then, the extra in front of him makes a face that ruins the scene’s intensity. He looks oblivious to what was happening, and his face seems to say, “Dead cops? Nobody told me about dead cops.”

So, we can understand his pain when a few extras look more interested in having a good time than in pretending to look like they’re actually fighting. Their visible grinning and constant smirks remind the audience that the fighting was not real. Well, there goes the authenticity.

One particular moment perfectly captures Algren’s skill in drilling the army. He is so good that when his horse kicks an extra straight at the groin, the extra resumes his position like a well-trained soldier after a momentary flinch. Now, that’s commitment!

 The iconic scene in the movie where Jones is fighting an Egyptian swordsman is remembered by many. The actor playing the butcher behind Jones, however, was quite terrible at his job. His unimpressive knife-wielding abilities would make any real butcher blush with embarrassment.

As the ice age transforms the dystopian earth overnight, a terrifying storm ravages everything. While everyone is scrambling for their lives, one man stands in the downpour, completely motionless. Maybe he’s just a really good swimmer?

Notably, the Mon Calamari from Dac had peculiar features, including eyes on the sides of their heads, making it difficult to see properly while in costume. In Return Of The Jedi, an extra clearly couldn’t find the button he was supposed to be pressing due to his rubber suit. He comically stumbles around in the background before finding it again.

Given this knowledge, it’s easy to assume Nolan hired accomplished stunt performers for the intense fight scenes in The Dark Knight Rises. In reality, the fight scenes included many extras, and you can spot one man punching the air during the Wall Street battle. It seems like Nolan was a tad too focused on Batman and Bane during this epic fight scene.