10 Actors With Disgusting On-Set Habits

Static Media

Everyone’s experienced that one co-worker who insists on dropping an air biscuit around the printer and copier, loves to warm up the stinkiest fish in a microwave, or forgets to flush the toilet after they go. For actors and crew members, they too need to put up with other people’s disgusting on-set habits. It could be anything from a refusal to take a shower on a daily basis to someone’s butt adding unnecessary sound effects to every scene. Whichever way, it’s a gross experience for the people who need to deal with the perpetrator and put up with whatever’s going down.

What’s surprising is how many top A-list talent possess these “special” quirks. For instance, Robert Pattinson and Brad Pitt aren’t renowned for being the cleanest people on a film set, so it’s probably best to apply a 20-meter radius when around them on a particularly hot day. Also, it’s advisable that you don’t sneak a sip out of any water bottle belonging to Dwayne Johnson, because let’s just say it isn’t only water he’s storing in there.

Ah, the joys of dealing with people and their quirks — it’s the one aspect of work that no one ever tells you about or prepares you for in life. So, with that being said, let’s check out the actors with the most disgusting on-set habits. Maybe run a bath or shower in the meantime, because you’ll want to scrub yourself clean after reading all these stories. Yeah, they’re super gross.

Dwayne Johnson only needs a water bottle to relieve himself on set

Dwayne Johnson as Cal Drift wearing sunglasses and looking to the side in Red One

Amazon MGM Studios

Look, Dwayne Johnson is a busy guy. Whether he’s popping up as the Final Boss at WWE events or jetting around the world to film his latest project, he hasn’t figured out a way to lay the smackdown on Father Time to halt his enemy’s magical powers. In 2024, accusations surfaced that the actor constantly arrived late on the set of his holiday movie “Red One” — not by 15 minutes, but by hours, setting back the production significantly. In the same report, there was an allegation about Dwayne Johnson’s disgusting on-set habit during “Red One”: He peed in water bottles rather than go to the bathroom. That isn’t all, though, as he would give the bottles to assistants to chuck away for him. The report didn’t specify if Johnson had a good aim or not.

Johnson confirmed the report, though he added he wasn’t as late to the set as what the story suggested. He also admitted to peeing in bottles when he needed to go. Now, he didn’t reveal who threw away his bottles of urine or how often he did it, but he copped to the fact at least.

Even so, it’s wild to think that the highest-paid actor of 2020 drizzles into a water bottle rather than use the facilities. If this was in the WWE, you just know that he would throw the contents of the bottle in his opponent’s face to pop a rating.

Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to fart in his End of Days co-star’s face

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Jericho Cane closing his eyes in End of Days

Universal Pictures

In “End of Days,” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Jericho Cane fights the Devil (Gabriel Byrne) to protect the world from the impending Apocalypse and the rise of the Antichrist. As it turns out, Schwarzenegger almost brought on his own end times after he allegedly dropped a 7.4 on the rectum scale. Unfortunately, a co-star happened to take the full brunt force of this gaseous exchange and hasn’t forgotten about it since then.

Miriam Margolyes plays the sinister Mabel in “End of Days,” but even that character didn’t deserve what happened to the actor on that one fateful day. Appearing on the “I’ve Got News For You” podcast, Margolyes said that she wasn’t a big fan of Schwarzenegger, calling him “a bit too full of himself” and “quite rude.” Now, while Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed himself a little too far while filming “Commando,” Margolyes didn’t appreciate the kind of “pushing” he did on “End of Days.”

Margolyes claimed that Schwarzenegger farted in her face while filming a scene. “I was playing Satan’s sister and he was killing me, so he had me in a position where I couldn’t escape and lying on the floor,” she said. “And he just farted. It wasn’t on film, it was in one of the pauses, but I haven’t forgiven him for it.” Schwarzenegger didn’t comment on whether he rang Hell’s bells or not.

Robert Pattinson doesn’t like to wash too often

Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen staring in The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Summit Entertainment

Robert Pattinson loves nothing more than to troll the media. Whether he’s fibbing about exploding clown cars or boring a stalker until she converts to Team Jacob, the British actor enjoys planting false stories about himself in the press and watching to see how far the chaos spreads. One story about him that doesn’t seem to go away, though, is about his personal hygiene — or lack thereof. According to people who worked on the “Twilight” movies, Edward Cullen wasn’t only allergic to sunlight but also soap and water.

An unnamed source on “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” set told E! News that Pattinson isn’t someone you would like to stand near for too long. “He stinks,” the person said. “I mean, it’s awful. He never showers, and it drives people on the set crazy.”

In the past, Pattinson commented about how he would go through long stretches where he wouldn’t wash his hair — again, one needs to question the legitimacy of what he tells the press because he loves to stir. However, he appears to have done a complete 180 in the personal hygiene department in recent times. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in 2014, he admitted that ever since he partnered with Dior, he began moisturizing. “It’s been a quite profound change in my life,” he said.

Johnny Galecki had an interesting way of disposing of his gum in The Big Bang Theory

Johnny Galecki as Leonard Hofstadter smiling on The Big Bang Theory

CBS

In “The Big Bang Theory,” Johnny Galecki’s Leonard Hofstadter offers up the chuckles alongside his nerdy cohorts, including Kunal Nayyar’s Raj Koothrappali. While appearing on the British television show “Sunday Brunch” (via Express), Nayyar peeled back the curtain for fans to find out what the actors got up to in between scenes. He also took the opportunity to share a gross story about Johnny Galecki and his disgusting on-set habit during “The Big Bang Theory.”

Nayyar discussed with the hosts how the recognizable staircase from the sitcom doesn’t actually lead to another floor or part of the set. Instead, it’s nothing more than a prop that leads to a wall. “Down there is nothing,” Nayyar said. “There’s a wall there where Johnny Galecki, for 12 years, would stick his chewing gum on. I’m not joking. There’s a wall of 3,000 dried chewing gum from Johnny Galecki.”

Nayyar suggested that diehard Leonard fans might be able to buy these pieces of gum from the network, but the stomach had already been churned by this revelation. Now, don’t let Galecki off the hook here, because sticking gum somewhere is nasty and he shouldn’t have done it, but does this mean that no one cleaned the set or props for over a decade? At some point, someone must have said to a cleaner, “Hey, that wall is full of gum and it’s super unhygienic. Please clean it.”

Brad Pitt relies heavily on baby wipes instead of showers

Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine speaking in Inglourious Basterds

The Weinstein Company

Brad Pitt stands out as a leading man, but not a lot of people would want to stand around him for too long if given the opportunity. Eli Roth, who shared the screen with Pitt in “Inglourious Basterds,” told People that Pitt provided him with an invaluable life tip on a particularly stinky day: Use baby wipes. “He shared that when you’re sweating and don’t have time to take a shower, you just take a baby wipe and rub it under your armpits,” Roth said, adding that Pitt told him it’s tough for him to find time to take a shower.

Well, Pitt’s aversion to showering stems back to the early days of his career, if his former roommate Jason Priestley is to be believed. The “Beverly Hills, 90210” actor revealed to the Metro that Pitt wasn’t the worst out of all his roommates, but still took part in a game where they tried to see who could go the longest without showering. Supposedly, Pitt was a world champion at this, though that’s not something that anyone would want a trophy for.

It appears as if Pitt is no longer a disciple of the ways of the baby wipe. Instead, he embraces showering and better personal hygiene overall. According to reports, his partner Ines de Ramon has had a positive effect on his life to the point where he washes — both his body and hair — and wears deodorant and cologne regularly.

Will Smith made Tommy Lee Jones suffer on the Men in Black set

Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K and Will Smith's Agent J upside down in a car in Men in Black

Sony Pictures Releasing

Who remembers Will Smith’s “Men in Black” song? Smith asked us to bounce, slide, walk, and make our necks work with him. Nowhere did it say we need to sniff him, right? By the sounds of it, his co-star Tommy Lee Jones wasn’t as fortunate on the “Men in Black” set, as Smith dropped a butt bomb that Jones must have wished he could use a neuralyzer to forget.

“Men in Black” director Barry Sonnenfeld revealed in his memoir “Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood” how Will Smith’s farts gave Tommy Lee Jones a world of trouble. According to the filmmaker, Smith loved to let rip on set, and Jones didn’t appear to have too much of an issue with it, but there was one scene where Smith effectively hotboxed the pair of them.

As Sonnenfeld wrote, the shot required Smith and Jones to be rigged into a sealed car body that would be turned upside down. In the scene, Agent J (Smith) doesn’t have his seatbelt on, while Agent K (Jones) does, so Smith was a lot closer to his co-star than if he had been buckled in. At this point, a fart squeezed out of Smith, who immediately apologized and called for assistance. Sonnenfeld and the crew turned the rig upright, got the actors out, and watched as Jones was “gasping for air” on the floor. Poor guy.

Kate Winslet peed in the water in Titanic

Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater looking up in Titanic

20th Century Studios

There is no shortage of sad moments in “Titanic.” The James Cameron-directed film is like one giant cry, as viewers sob over two star-crossed lovers who will never be together — oh, yeah, and a lot of people die when the ship collides with an iceberg. Yet, the context of the movie changes when you find out what actually took place in the water scenes.

Since Rose DeWitt Bukater was largely dressed to the nines — unless Jack Dawson was drawing her like one of his French girls — Kate Winslet didn’t exactly feel like enduring the laborious task of taking off all the attire and putting it back on when she needed to use the bathroom. So, the actor developed a disgusting on-set habit and peed in the water tank. “So, yeah, I peed,” Winslet told Rolling Stone. “I mean, it’s the same with a swimming pool — do you really think about what’s in it?”

Some people think it’s okay to pee in a swimming pool because the chlorine and acid will sort out the problem, but it’s been proven otherwise. There are compounds in urine that, when mixed with something like chlorine, could lead to eye or respiratory infections. So, if anyone on “Titanic” had red eyes or trouble breathing after a water scene, they know who to blame for it.

Woody Harrelson is a hoot and toot to be around

Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd holding a towel on Cheers

NBC

Woody Harrelson turned into a household name after his performance as Woody Boyd in “Cheers,” where he helped make it one of the best sitcoms of all time. Harrelson wasn’t only beloved by the viewers watching at home but also by his co-stars, who developed a lifelong friendship with him. During a 30-year anniversary celebration of the sitcom’s finale in 2023, Ted Danson opened up about Harrelson and his gassy exploits on set.

Speaking at the ATX Television Festival (via IndieWire), Danson revealed that Harrelson loved nothing more than to sneak up on his co-stars and cut the cheese. “Woody was a vegetarian, which meant he had horrible gas,” Danson said. “He would come up to me sometimes during rehearsal and say, ‘Hey, I need your advice. I respect you so much.’ And he’d look me right in the eye, waiting for his fart to reach my nose. He was like a killer — he wanted to see my eyes go out.”

It wasn’t the only time that Danson would tell this stinky story, including a time on the “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast when he brought it up in front of Harrelson, who corrected him and told him they were “vegan farts.” Danson claimed that Harrelson knew how to “shut down production” with his foul smells. In the same conversation, Simu Liu, who stars alongside Harrelson in the aptly titled “Last Breath,” confirmed that he had also smelled one of the infamous “vegan farts.”

Bradley Cooper chewed tobacco before his scenes

Bradley Cooper as Ben Gunders smirking in He's Just Not That into You

Warner Bros. Pictures

Sometimes, actors openly admit to their disgusting on-set habits, such as when Bradley Cooper appeared on “The Jonathan Ross Show.” Cooper spoke about how he chewed tobacco because it made him feel more like a man. Yet, he wasn’t only doing it in his private capacity, as he would also do it while on film sets. Eventually, he had a realization about how filthy it was after an embarrassing moment on the set of 2009’s “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

As Cooper recalled, he was going over a scene that he, as the character Ben Gunders, was about to share with Scarlett Johansson, who played his romantic interest Anna Marks in the film. In the midst of the discussion, he spat out his dip into the cup, but there was still a long string of saliva dangling from his lips. “It was really disgusting,” Cooper said.

Cooper joked that there was a part of him that thought Johansson might have thought he looked manly because he chewed tobacco. However, he looks back on the incident and knows that there’s no way anyone could have interpreted it that way since it was a gross moment.

Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t care about bad breath

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen smiling in The Hunger Games

Lionsgate

So, this is more of an example of actors horsing around than outright disgusting on-set habits. That being said, it’s still gross for the recipient. Appearing on “The Graham Norton Show,” Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she wasn’t obsessed with having fresh breath when she had to kiss “The Hunger Games” co-stars Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson. “Whenever I had to kiss Josh and Liam for ‘The Hunger Games,’ who cares,” Lawrence said. “I’d eat like mustard and tuna — like who cares?”

Hemsworth confirmed this story on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” He explained how she would load up on garlic or tuna, then drop the bombshell before they were meant to share a romantic scene. According to Hemsworth, she took pride in the fact she did this and hadn’t brushed her teeth, so that he could receive a flavorful smooch.

Lawrence, though, insisted that she changed her ways after starring alongside Christian Bale in “American Hustle.” She also claimed that she took a mint before kissing Chris Pratt in “Passengers.” It’s probably for the best, since she wouldn’t want more co-stars to join the club of actors who refused to shoot kissing scenes after appearing in a movie with her.