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Billy Crystal's ad-libs in 'The Princess Bride' were so funny Rob Reiner had to leave set

And he wasn't the only one.

LionsgateFilmUK/YouTube

Billy Crystal created most of Miracle Max's lines in "The Princess Bride" off the cuff.

It's often said that comedy is harder than drama, and while that may be debatable, there's no doubt that good comedians are a unique breed. Comedic actors know how to deliver lines in just the right way with just the right timing to make an audience laugh, but true comedians are often funnier when they’re allowed to go off-script and let their gift for spontaneous humor shine.

Enter Billy Crystal, whose ad-libbed scene in “The Princess Bride” was so funny it took nearly 30 hours of work to get five minutes of usable footage. Cast members of the cult classic film have shared what happened when director Rob Reiner decided to take the reins off of Crystal, telling him, “Forget the lines, just go for it,” according to actor Cary Elwes. That invitation to improvise would prove to be one of the best—and worst—decisions he could have made for the film.

billy crystal, the princess bride, miracle maxThe Princess Bride Disney Plus GIF by Disney+Giphy

In the scene, Crystal plays “Miracle Max,” a crotchety old apothecary who argues with his wife (played by Carol Kane) and brings the "mostly dead" Westley back to life with his chocolate-covered magic pill. There were lines written for his character, but he didn't need them. He could—and did—ad-lib for hours, but it proved to be a bit of a problem because the cast and crew just couldn't stop laughing.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

The sound department had to start banishing people off of the set because they were ruining takes with their giggles. Reiner himself, who has a big, boisterous laugh, was one of the first people to go because he couldn't keep it together during the filming. Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya and wasn't able to leave, shared that he sustained his only injury in the entire making of the film during the shooting of that scene—a bruised rib from holding in laughter.

Elwes said Reiner told him he needed to lie perfectly still and hold his breath in the scene, but Crystal's "medieval Yiddish stand-up" proved too hilarious and Elwes had to be replaced with his rubber dummy for much of the shoot. Patinkin said that Reiner nearly threw up from laughing so hard, and people in the cast and crew had to bite their hands to keep quiet. Production was nearly shut down for the day and the scene became one of the most expensive scenes in the movie because it used so much film, according to InCinematic. And the vast majority of what was filmed never got seen.

The Princess Bride You Killed My Father GIFGiphy

"Unfortunately, there's so many spoiled—brilliantly hilarious takes that we all spoiled," said Elwes. He also wrote in his book about the movie that Crystal never said the same thing or delivered the same line twice. Crystal's improv resulted in some of the most memorable lines from the film, such as the classic, "Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world—except for a nice MLT–mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean…"

Even the look of Miracle Max was from Crystal's brain child. He told his makeup artist that he wanted the character to look like a mix between Casey Stengel, former manager for the New York Yankees, and Crystal's grandmother.

Casey Stengel served as inspiration for the Miracle Max character in "The Princess Bride."Public Domain

People loved hearing about Crystal's comedic genius, wishing the footage that couldn't be used would be released.

"You can't plan a movie like The Princess Bride, when you've got the right people sometimes it just happens."

"Nothing greater as an improvising-comedian actor than hearing the words; 'Forget the lines, just go for it.'"

"Three straight days of Billy off the cuff is pure gold. I would've loved to have been on that set lmao."

Billy Crystal Oscars GIF by The Academy AwardsGiphy

"When the comedy is so good, you bruise your OWN RIB tryna hold it in."

"Release the tapes, raw and uncut. The people demand it."

We may not have access to the unseen footage of Crystal's improvised hilarity, but we can at least enjoy the scenes that did make it into the film by rewatching "The Princess Bride," which many fans do annually. The film even returned to theaters briefly for its 30th Anniversary in the fall of 2023, much to the delight of people who yearned to see it on the big screen again.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

This article originally appeared in January.


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Joy

Comedian's masterful 'corporate accent' is so on-point that people call it triggering

We've all worked with 'Corporate Erin.'

via LisaBeEvolving/TikTok

Lisa Beasley as Corporate Erin

Comedian Lisa Beasley is making people squirm on TikTok with her character, Corporate Erin. Erin is a parody of the typical corporate employee in America, complete with her corporate accent, corporate gulp and mastery of corporate jargon.

She even has the perfect corporate job title: The manager for the managerial logistics of management at McManagement.

In her videos, Erin talks at you in your “one-on-one” meeting while clutching her coffee cup for dear life, uncomfortably gyrating in her chair and adjusting her glasses. Erin has the unique ability to talk at length using corporate word salad while saying absolutely nothing. But she definitely wants to circle back with you to be sure you have the deliverables for the rollout. Okayyyyyy?

In this video with over 9 million views, Erin explains how she has taken over her creator’s feed because she doesn’t have the “bandwidth.”

@lisabevolving

Hi, #CorporateErin here taking over social media for Lis. If you have any questions regarding my new position, please follow up with me in the comments. Im only here to do whats best for the business.

Beasley described the thrust of the Erin character to the Huffington Post. “There’s also just kind of a layer of passive aggressiveness as well, and defensiveness and just kind of always making sure that I’m drilling home my points or my objectives,” Beasley said.

The videos are all too real for many people who follow Beasley on TikTok.

“This is SPOT ON. The corporate accent, the nonsense, the talking for 30 min and saying nothing,” one commenter said. “You encounter a version of me in every workplace,” Beasley, as the Erin character, told 13 News.

It looks like we’ve finished this a bit early, so we’ll give you your minute back.

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Pop Culture

Comedian's video of her acting out the weird things in life we consider normal is a viral sensation

You'll never look at birthday parties the same way again.

Sophie Craig/Facebook

Why do we do the things we do?

Humaning is a strange thing. Like, if aliens really were to come down and ask us to explain some of our everyday activities, they would probably shake their heads in disbelief. All seven of them.

If there’s any doubt to this, just take a look at comedian Sophie Craig’s hilarious video making the rounds on social media, where she brilliantly points out the utter absurdity of things humanity considered completely ‘normal’…all by candidly narrating the bizarre thought process behind them.

No mundane activity is spared—from lighting candles (aka starting “lots of little fires around my house because that will make it look very pretty”) to watching television (otherwise known as “that time of the day again where we watch the big square thing in our living room and watch people pretending to be other people”).

Nothing is spared, from beauty rituals to parties, home decor, pets, social media, even singing. Suddenly, it becomes glaringly obvious how so much of what we do in society is completely arbitrary. And if you look at this closely, definitely NOT normal.

Plus, the comedy is heightened ten fold by Craig’s charming accent and unending smile.

Watch:

100 percent accurate, right? And funny to boot.

Craig’s video has been viewed a whopping 7.4 million times, with literally thousands of comments from folks who couldn't’ help but agree that many normal human things actually make zero sense.

Many even chimed in with their own examples:

“I’m just going to press this little heart here to show that I liked this video, and also a comment saying the same thing.”

“When doing makeup: 'I'm just going to use this liquid that vaguely looks like my skin colour to cover up any natural redness in my cheeks so I can then put red powder over the top of the liquid so it looks like my cheeks are red.'”

“I’m going to plant green plants known as grass, but then I don’t want it to grow too tall so I’ll cut it every week, but also water it to help it grow because it must be bright green, not brown and definitely not yellow. I will apply fertilizer if is not growing well, but also still cut it every week. And of course, it must be only plants I’ve decided to call grass…not other very similar plants that I’ve chosen to call weeds, even if they are bright green.”

Moral of the story: existence is absurd. And maybe the best thing we can do as a society is to remind ourselves of that once in a while. Or have funny people do it for us.

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In '90s gem, Larry David debunks idea that 'Seinfeld' was sold as a show about 'nothing'

Larry David explains how we've all somehow tricked ourselves into believing a gag on the show was the truth.

commons.wikimedia.org

Larry David debunks 'Seinfeld' was a show about nothing.

In a recently unearthed video from 1998, Larry David, co-creator of "Seinfeld," sits down with Charlie Rose to talk about the end of the hit TV show. Within the first few minutes of the interview, David drops a line that leaves Rose temporarily speechless. "Seinfeld" was not pitched as a show about nothing and everyone’s memory of that being true was actually taken from a "Seinfeld" episode.

If you need a moment to collect yourself, please take it. I was shocked because I clearly remember it being about nothing. And if you have no idea who or what "Seinfeld" was, let me fill you in. "Seinfeld" was once at the top of the sitcom world and introduced a standup comedian named Jerry Seinfeld and his friends to the world. Viewers came back every week to watch all of the randomly hilarious situations that Seinfeld would find himself in and would close with him doing a comedic monologue on stage about the very things we saw him experience. How did a large group of people believe that the show was supposed to be about nothing?

Our brains are so powerful. We hear something and eventually that becomes reality, whether it’s true or not. It's a phenomenon known as the Mandela effect where our brains create a false memory. Surprisingly it happens more often than one would think. Nelson Mandela died in 2013, but for some reason a ridiculous amount of people remember him dying in the 1980s while still in jail. There are countless examples of this phenomenon, including whether Curious George had a tail or not and if the Monopoly man wore a monocle.

No matter how many people insist their memory is correct about "Seinfeld," you can’t really dispute the show's creator. I’m pretty sure he would know what he pitched and wrote. Either way, this was certainly a fun relic to dig up. And will surely leave people scratching their heads and questioning their memories.

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