Hollywood directors spend years planning the perfect box office movie. They edit and re-edit the scripts, cast and recast the crew, and set the scene just right to make sure their visions are perfect. However, sometimes the actors have their own ideas in mind. Some of the most remembered scenes from movies, weren’t from a set of lines, weren’t rehearesed a thousand times over, they just happened.

For example, in the Batman Dark Knight trilogy, hidden within The Dark Knight,  the audience watches in horror as the Joker, Heath Ledger, mercilessly detinates explosives that he had within a hospital. Not all of the bombs go off and the villian pauses a moment to mess with his controller, providing a sense of dark humor. What the audience wouldn’t have realized was that the cast and crew only had one chance to film this scene, the bombs actually did malfunction and Ledger quickly acted to cover up the mistake.
Also, within The Dark Knight, as Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) is promoted commisioner and the entire room applauds, the Joker’s slow clapping while keeping the same expression on his make-up covered face, was unscripted as well, yet it left the audience with an unsettling feeling about the character.

Dumb and Dumber, starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, has its own improvised scene. As the main characters and the antagonist are driving along on a not-so-happy road trip, Carrey decided to ad-lib a little as he turned to his coworkers and said. “Hey, wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” then proceeds to make a noise that can only be described as a human attempting to mock the sound of a cow giving birth. His coworker, Mike Starr’s reaction was his honest reaction of annoyance.

During Saving Private Ryan, as Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) and Private Ryan (Matt Damon) are swapping stories about life back home, the story Damon tells about his brothers and the barn was entirely made up by him during filming.

One of the most famous lines from Jaws, “You’re going to need a bigger boat,” was completely off-script.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, as Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is about to be encased in carbonite, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) admits her feelings for him, declaring her love. The script originally told Ford to respond with “I love you too,” however, he felt it wasn’t something the character would say. Instead, Han Solo looked into Leia’s eyes and simply stated “I know.”

Although directors attempt to plan perfection, and attempt to make their films entirely memorable on their own, sometimes it’s the actors and their instincts that truly bring the story to life.