“Wigs. Expensive Wigs”: 59 Hollywood Secrets That Only Outsiders Wouldn’t Know

As someone who's worked with horses. Horses get treated very well on sets. Based on coat shine and ear placement, it's clear that even in scenes where the horses are "distressed" that those horses are happy as heck. They do a trick, they get apple slices and pets. The horses can also usually see their handler off camera. So always remember, no matter how disheveled the horse appears, no matter how distressed they are on screen, those horses are living the best lives possible for horses.

If an actress is "hard to work with" it means she stood up for herself and didn't allow people to harass her on set. .

Henry Winkler is one of the nicest people around. I did personal security for him once and he was an absolute saint. Everyone I know who worked with him has said the same.

I have been in the film business for many decades. I don't care if we're shooting a car chase, a love scene, blowing up a building or machinegun shootout. All of us are thinking "I wonder what catering is serving for lunch today?" Ha. It's true.

When a cat is in a movie they don’t train one cat to do a dozen tricks, they train a dozen cats to do one trick apiece. For example: It took 10 cats playing Sassy to film Homeward Bound. Obviously CGI will change this over time but that’s how many “old” movies were filmed with cats. They usually only credit one cat with a generic name.

“Overnight success” usually means a decade of being rejected, working side jobs, networking, taking tiny roles, and being one lucky break away from disappearing entirely.

Also, a lot of “movie magic” is exhausted crews solving expensive problems at 3 a.m. so the audience never notices anything went wrong.

The streaming business model is built so that a successful show will often get canceled precisely because it is doing well. That happens because a hit brings in nearly all of its new paying subscribers during its first season, but as the show continues, its cast and production costs skyrocket because actors and crew from a hit show are going to ask for more money, but the audience becomes limited to people who are already paying anyway. Platforms make far more money by cutting that expensive hit and splitting the budget across multiple brand new shows and new actors to lure in fresh subscribers.

Every male actor who gains 30 lbs of pure lean muscle mass in 4 months for a Marvel role isn't just eating "chicken, broccoli and rice." They're on massive stacks of TRT, human growth hormone and anabolic steroids with top tier Hollywood doctors monitoring their bloodwork. Everyone in the fitness and film industry knows it, but they have to keep up the natural myth for marketing.

The music industry (aside from diddy) never had a reckoning. The same jerks move from label to label in the positions of power.

The fact that literally everyone in the industry knew exactly what Dan Schneider and Brian Peck were doing to those kids at Nickelodeon for over a decade, and absolutely no one stepped in because the sitcoms were pulling in too much ad revenue.

George Clooney is basically Julia Roberts' only friend left in the business. Few have probably a worse on-set reputation than she does throughout her career.

The men get plastic surgery/Botox/fillers as much as the women. And almost every dude over 30 with a decent hairline has had a hair transplant. Although some go for a less obvious upgrade, some shave their heads (typically done pre-op to "fool" the masses) and miraculously have added 3"-5" of hairline they haven't seen since high school.

Men don't "age better"- that's just standard misogyny.

Sophia Vergara and Jennifer Lopez are insufferable to be around and treat crew members like garbage - and are only nice to Directors, DPs, or Photographers .

And even though everyone suspects Tom Cruise of various behind the scenes stuff - in person he’s actually the nicest, respectful and professional person, almost like it’s an act how he treats common crew so nicely. Only celeb I’ve heard of that no one can give first hand account of him being a jerk in person.

There are very, very few who just "make it". If you do a deep dive on 20 different actors you like, most of them are nepo babies to some extent (not always a direct child of famous actors, but more often a child of a casting director, or a studio executive, rich tech families etc etc). Sure, you can find a random few, but the story of the bright eyed kid getting off the bus and grinding and going to all the auditions until that one big break is so incredibly rare to the extent it almost doesn't exist.

With that said, plenty of actors in LA can make a living getting some good roles that the public rarely sees like corporate videos, projects that never see the light of day, commercials etc etc.

Reality shows are scripted.

Kerry Washington is a nightmare. A real "do you know who I am?!" Person.

Jeremy Piven steals weed from people at parties, then tries to get them kicked out.

John Goodman has not been sober since 2007, despite what his wiki says.

Kim Kardashian wasn't originally planning to marry Kris Humphreys, there was a player on the Knicks that they wanted for the sham wedding, but he wasn't into it. Original plan was also for their marriage to last a year or so and then have a big publicized divorce but she couldn't stand him.

There is a little known (though that might be changing) service where actresses who almost made it or had 15 min of fame can be hired for the evening. It's not officially what you're thinking, but it often ends up being exactly that.

Lexington is a faster street to get down than Fountain, between LaBrea and Cahuenga.

You can jaywalk in LA now.

Former agency and producer's assistant here. F that industry, here's what I can remember:

Talk show appearances are mostly staged. Very little is spontaneous anymore when it comes to celebrity appearances in public. Those candid interviews? Nah. Mostly a put-on and *at least* rehearsed.

Everyone pirates. One guy in the office knows a guy who has a screener of the next hit movie, say a rough cut of *Doomsday,* and they're expected to bring that screener to the office for ripping and duplication. I used to run one office's rip-and-burn tower.

Those diversity fellowships are almost all for show. They usually hire people who were working as writer's assistants in the first place. It's usually just hiring a POC with a rolodex. POC with great work get overlooked for lesser writers with contacts and it's called progressive. I hated it.

If you don't live in NY or LA, most assume you don't take your art seriously. They want someone they can send out to face-to-face meetings that day (this may have changed during Covid, somebody please check me on this).

Standups who do nothing else are of zero use. Virtually every comic to make it big in the United States has also been a writer, actor, improviser, musician, etc. If you're a standup and you don't have a second thing, you're probably not getting representation. Producers and agents tend to not like standups without a "slash."

Most workers in Hollywood are just blue-collar laborers. They're teamsters and IBEW and caterers and grips and PAs. These folks are usually middle-class, not connected to celebrities any more than you're connected to the brass at a big company you worked for. Work-a-day folks who just make a decent and relatively plain living. Mostly just regular folks.

It's afraid to offend because there is no guaranteed next job. It's not liberal because it's principled, it's liberal because nobody knows who their next investor or producer might be. They don't want to Tweet their way out of the next Best Picture.

All those “leaks” and “spoilers” you see from actors are fake, the studio allows them to do that for marketing/buzz.

A lot of hit songs were written and recorded by session musicians like The Wrecking Crew.

Most "candid" street photos of celebrities in coordinated outfits are pre-arranged. PR teams tip off photographers with time and location to keep the star in the news.

Hugh Jackman is close personal friends with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner by his own admission.
He defends the relationship and simply says, “they don’t discuss politics.”.