Difficult Actors to Work With24 of 48
Lawrence Tierney
Was known for being a violent and very intimidating man, scaring many of the people he worked with over the years.
A very notable incident of this included Tierney frightening and intimidating the cast and crew of Seinfeld (1989). While filming his guest role as Elaine Benes' father, Tierney exhibited bizarre and threatening behavior, with Jason Alexander saying he 'scared the living crap out of all of us', and Julia Louis-Dreyfus calling him 'a complete psycho'.
During the filming of the episode, Tierney became angered by the crew laughing at his scenes, and stole a butcher's knife from the set. When confronted by Jerry Seinfeld about the missing knife, Tierney pulled out the knife and made threatening stabbing motions towards him, to the horror of everyone else on-set. He was never invited back to the show as a result of this, despite initial plans to make him a recurring character.
Tierney was also extremely difficult on the set of Reservoir Dogs (1992), with director Quentin Tarantino calling working with him 'a directorial school by fire'. Tierney regularly antagonized the cast and crew, and constantly forgot his lines. At one point, Tierney got into a massive fight with Tarantino, to the point where the two had to be physically restrained. He was fired after the first week of shooting before eventually being invited back.
He was also arrested during a weekend off from filming for shooting at his nephew.
Was known for being a violent and very intimidating man, scaring many of the people he worked with over the years.
A very notable incident of this included Tierney frightening and intimidating the cast and crew of Seinfeld (1989). While filming his guest role as Elaine Benes' father, Tierney exhibited bizarre and threatening behavior, with Jason Alexander saying he 'scared the living crap out of all of us', and Julia Louis-Dreyfus calling him 'a complete psycho'.
During the filming of the episode, Tierney became angered by the crew laughing at his scenes, and stole a butcher's knife from the set. When confronted by Jerry Seinfeld about the missing knife, Tierney pulled out the knife and made threatening stabbing motions towards him, to the horror of everyone else on-set. He was never invited back to the show as a result of this, despite initial plans to make him a recurring character.
Tierney was also extremely difficult on the set of Reservoir Dogs (1992), with director Quentin Tarantino calling working with him 'a directorial school by fire'. Tierney regularly antagonized the cast and crew, and constantly forgot his lines. At one point, Tierney got into a massive fight with Tarantino, to the point where the two had to be physically restrained. He was fired after the first week of shooting before eventually being invited back.
He was also arrested during a weekend off from filming for shooting at his nephew.
PeopleLawrence Tierney
Photo by David Keeler - Image courtesy gettyimages.com