When directors and producers set out to make a movie, it's easy to envision they have this perfect idea in their head from the beginning, and that idea is what moviegoers eventually see on the big screen. But that's just not how the creative process works. From beginning to end, changes both big and small are happening as the finished movie is coming together. This happens most often on the cutting room floor where entire scenes are edited out, but it also happens during filming, when unplanned moments come to light. In these cases, it's usually the actors who are making slight tweaks to their planned lines. Usually, the director yells "Cut!" after hearing this and informs the actor just to read the line as given. But there are times when the improvised line is so perfectly suited for the moment, it makes the entire scene (and film) better. These famous lines not in the script were simply too good for the director to cut from the film. Tell us, which of these famous lines not in the script do you love the most? Did you know some of these weren't planned? Be sure to SHARE these great improvised lines with your friends on Facebook!

We bet just looking at this photo is enough to queue the quote in your head: "You can't handle the truth!!" Though as iconic as the line was, in the script it was slightly different. When Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is questioning Colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) on the stand, Kaffee says, "I want the truth!" In the script, Nicholson was supposed to say, "You already have the truth!" But Nicholson didn't love the line and changed it to the infinitely better version. Nicholson's slight pause afterwards just makes the line that much more impactful.

The original Indiana Jones films are some of the most beloved in film history. (We challenge you to find someone who doesn't like at least one of them.) And it's not out of the question to suggest that with each film, they got better. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the final film in the original trilogy and arguably the best. With the addition of Sean Connery as Indiana's father, it was a surefire hit. While all the films have incredible moments, it was an understated and improvised exchange that left much of the crew rolling on the floor laughing. When Indiana (Harrison Ford) and Henry Jones (Connery) are captured, Indiana asks his dad how he knew Elsa (Alison Doody) was a Nazi. Henry quietly remarks, "She talks in her sleep." Indiana looks away momentarily, but then gets a wide-eyed look on his face and a wry smile. The line was never in the script and Connery had made it up on the spot. Reportedly, many on the crew burst out laughing and they had to stop rolling. Director Steven Spielberg is reported to have said, "Well that's in," meaning the line would be left in the final cut.

Midnight Cowboy, the story of two con men forming an unlikely friendship, is considered one of the greatest films ever made. And one of its most memorable scenes happened only because a rogue New York City cab driver ignored the signs that a movie was shooting and nearly ran over the film's stars. In the scene where "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) and Joe Buck (Jon Voight) are walking down the street, a real cab screeches to a halt just as the characters cross an intersection. Ratso famously screams, "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!" and after the driver speeds off, he adds, "Don't worry about that. Actually, that ain't a bad way to pick up insurance, ya know." Hoffman never broke character despite nearly being run over and just ad-libbed new lines before continuing with the planned scripted lines. It was so seamlessly done that they were able to keep it in the film.

With classic heroes and villains, political intrigue, and fantastic creatures from all corners of the universe, the Star Wars movies have become universal in so many senses. Fans of all stripes have their favorite movie and moments, but it's widely regarded that The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the bunch. Expertly deepening the Star Wars canon, Empire gave us some of the most memorable scenes and lines from the entire franchise. But one famous scene was made up on the spot by Harrison Ford. Just before Han Solo (Ford) is to be frozen in carbonite, Leia (Carrie Fisher) confesses that she loves him. In the script, Han was simply supposed to say, "I love you too," but Ford didn't feel that fit well with his character and approached director George Lucas about it. Lucas told Ford to say whatever he liked. So with the cameras rolling, Fisher delivers her line and Ford responds with the perfect Solo response: "I know."

You'd think a movie that earned such high critical praise wouldn't have a lot of hijinks happening behind the scenes, but one of the most memorable scenes in Being John Malkovich wasn't planned. In one of the highway scenes, a truck speeds by John Malkovich (played by himself, of course) and a rowdy youth yells, "Hey Malkovich, think fast!" and whips a can at his head. The can hit the actor, who lets out a loud expletive. The scene was never actually planned. It turns out the extra in the scene was drunk (thankfully not the one driving) and decided he was going to do it. Director Spike Jonze loved the scene and organic reaction from Malkovich and kept it in the film. The extra had to be bumped up to a regular cast member and was given an acting credit in the film.

For his role as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, Tommy Lee Jones earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in The Fugitive. The movie was a huge box office success and helped turn Jones into a star. In the famous tunnel chase scene, Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) tries to appeal to Gerard, saying, "I didn't kill my wife!" According to the original script, Jones was supposed to say, "That's not my problem." Jones instead said the very in-character retort, "I don't care." Boom, Oscar...

Arguably the greatest mobster movie of all time, Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas had a talented cast that could really do no wrong, even when making up their own lines. Full of memorable quotes, none really compare to Joe Pesci's "Funny how?" moment, which is surprising considering it was never in the original script. When Tommy DeVito (Pesci) tells a funny story, Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) tells him he's funny. Tommy takes this as an insult, suggesting that Henry thinks Tommy is a "clown" just here to "amuse you." Tommy escalates the situation, leaving everyone at the table squirming, before laughing it off as another joke. According to Pesci, the scene was actually something he and Liotta had worked on off-camera and when Scorsese saw it, he added it into a revised script for filming.

When it's one of the most iconic and quoted lines in movie history, it had to be planned, right? Nope. In the 1976 classic Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) prepares to help a young prostitute escape her pimp. As he amps himself up in his apartment, Bickle talks to himself in the mirror, delivering the memorable line, "You talkin' to me?" The script itself actually had no lines for De Niro to recite, simply stating, "Bickle speaks to himself in the mirror." De Niro came up with all the lines on his own.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat." It's the line Chief Martin Brody (Roy Schneider) utters after he and viewers get their best look yet at the terrifying, massive great white shark in Jaws. Schneider famously added the line in himself, but it turns out he didn't just think of it off the top of his head. It had been a line that was floating around the set for a long time. The producers of the movie were notoriously cheap, which is part of the reason why they had to film on a very small boat in the first place. But the line became a filler any time anything went wrong on set, even if it was something innocuous like lunch arriving late. Schneider used the line in one take, and it just worked so well that it had to be kept in.

Full Metal Jacket still stands as one of the most enthralling and affecting film studies of war. Garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, one might be surprised to learn that the film's most famous character (arguably) never had his lines scripted. R. Lee Ermey was originally hired for the production crew as a technical advisor, as he had been a Parris Island Marine drill instructor. When director Stanley Kubrick couldn't find an actor who could capture Ermey's drill sergeant style, he just cast Ermey in the role and told him to do what he would in normal boot camp. Kubrick later stated that more than 50 percent of Ermey's lines were made up by the actor.

When Paulie Gatto (Johnny Martino) double-crosses Vito Corleone, he's ordered to be taken out. Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano) and a henchman take Paulie outside the city, where he's shot in the back of the head while Clemenza takes a whizz. When Clemenza goes back to the car, he tells the henchman to "Leave the gun." That line was in the script, but Castellano threw in the line, "Take the cannoli." Director Francis Ford Coppola loved the line and decided to keep it in the film.

Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is only on screen for 25 of the 120 minutes of The Silence of the Lambs, but his performance became iconic, catapulting the character to universal fame and earning Hopkins an Academy Award for Best Actor. Lecter steals every scene he's in, especially the one where he delivers his masterful line, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Lecter pauses, then makes a gross hissing sound. The added sound effect wasn't in the script and hadn't been rehearsed. Hopkins made it up. The camera cuts to FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), who remains stunned and speechless. Foster didn't know how to react, and it just fit too well in the scene to be cut.

Good Will Hunting made stars out of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck thanks to their incredible writing and acting, but one memorable line delivered by Robin Williams helps add a final heartwarming moment at the end of the film. Early in the movie, Dr. Sean Maguire (Williams) tells the story of how he met his wife, missing Game 6 of the 1975 World Series to instead stay in a bar to have a drink with the woman who would be his wife, saying, "Sorry guys, I gotta see about a girl." At the close of the film, Will Hunting (Damon) uses the line in a handwritten note to tell Maguire that he's gone to California to fix his relationship with Skylar. Williams was just supposed to stand in his doorway as the voiceover repeats the line, but instead Williams smiles and says, "Son of a b*tch. He stole my line." Williams' ad-lib remained in the final cut.

In the beloved classic Forrest Gump, the titular character joins the Army, where he meets his good friend, Benjamin Buford Blue (Mykelti Williamson), who says, "People call me 'Bubba.'" Tom Hanks' line in the script was just to say, "My name is Forrest Gump," but Hanks decided to mimic Bubba's introduction and added in, "People call me Forrest Gump." Director Robert Zemeckis loved the line and how it fit so well with the character, and he couldn't bring himself to cut it out.

During the climax of Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) fights for his life against the replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). But as Batty's replicant lifespan ticks down to zero, he instead saves Deckard. The original script called for a long soliloquy, but the night before filming Hauer altered his lines without telling director Ridley Scott. Hauer's rendition, adding in the line, "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain," perfectly punctuates the scene to succinctly humanize the replicants. It's now considered one of the greatest lines in sci-fi film history. The full rendition is as follows: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

If you were familiar with Jim Carrey before he got his big breaks in films, then you knew he was downright hilarious on the sketch comedy show In Living Color. Carrey used his brilliant off-the-cuff comedy to perfection in Dumb and Dumber, and perhaps the most famous scene is where Harry (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd (Carrey) pick up the hitman hitchhiker. According to the director, the whole scene was improvised, including Lloyd's famous "most annoying sound in the world" and the duo's rendition of "Mockingbird."

You could be forgiven if you've never seen John Carpenter's horror-action flick They Live! While a commercial and critical failure upon its release, the film has become a cult favorite. That status has possibly been helped by an iconic line delivered from pro wrestler and actor Roddy Piper. When Nada (Piper) walks into a bank to kill some of the aliens hiding amongst humans, he says the classic line, "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick a** ... and I'm all out of bubblegum." Piper later revealed that Carpenter told him to say whatever he felt like, adding in an interview, "Yeah, I couldn't tell you what it really means." The line has been parodied countless times since.

If you've never watched much of Gene Wilder films, do yourself a favor and queue up whatever you can on your streaming service. The actor was a brilliant improviser, and this moment in Blazing Saddles showed how creative he could be. When Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) discovers that the townspeople are just as racist to him even though he's now law enforcement, Jim the "Waco Kid" (Wilder) consoles him with a little humor. “You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know … morons.” Wilder added in, "You know ... morons" to the script and it caused Little to actually burst out laughing. You can even see Little look at the crew, wondering if his laugh ruined the shot. It actually made the scene perfect.

It's hard to point to one specific line that Marlon Brando ad-libbed in Apocalypse Now because the actor famously pretty much made up all of his lines as he went along. The problems started with Brando showing up on set far more overweight than he needed to be for the script that was written. Director Francis Ford Coppola used close-up shots and loose, black clothing to hide Brando's figure. Coppola and Brando began working on a new script on the fly as shooting was taking place. Coppola has said that Brando made up approximately 50 percent of the final lines heard in the movie, including his famous long soliloquy on the horrors of war.

Though Rick Moranis retired from acting to care for his family in the late 90s, many of his roles remain fan favorites, and he was highly regarded as a great improvisor. Toward the end of the 1984 classic Ghostbusters, Louis Tully (Moranis) holds a party for many of his clients. According to director Ivan Reitman, the entire scene was ad-libbed by Moranis. Reitman later revealed, "Rick just made all of it up as he was doing it."

In a movie like Titanic, it’s hard to imagine that one of the most famous lines of the entire film was totally ad libbed. But, here we are. The famous scene where Leonardo DiCaprio starts shouting that he was king of the world was never written in the original script. Rather, the famous line was first said by DiCaprio when he got on the boat prior to the shoot. James Cameron was so enamored with the line that he insisted it get added to the script as a way to add a little carefree joy to the romance scene.

Casablanca’s most famous line is still said today as a part of pop culture, but if the actors stuck to the script, it never would have entered the public psyche. This was a line that wasn’t even ad libbed, but overheard behind the scenes. Humphrey Bogart said the famous line to Ingrid Bergman while teaching her how to play poker during an onset break. Much like Titanic’s famous line, it was incorporated into the script due to its unique twist on words.

Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is known for its gruesome ultra-violence and the many surreal, sci-fi scenes filled with dystopian chaos. No other film made a classic musical number sound so evil and sinister like this flick, and believe it or not, the famous scene was not originally a part of the script. Actor Malcolm McDowell was the one who randomly decided to start singing during the home invasion scene. Kubrick loved the ad libbed act, and urged them to keep it in the shoot.

Dr. Strangelove is one of those campy films that acted as an anti-war flick as well as a wildly appropriate satire about military life. The real star of the show was Peter Sellers, who played the mad scientist known as Dr. Strangelove. Truth be told, this movie had a lot of ad libbed lines worth noting. The most famous line of the movie, uttered at the end by the Nazi doctor, was made up on the spot. Peter Sellers sold it well and it became a cornerstone of the film.

Shaun of the Dead was filled with knee-slappingly funny lines, but this subtle jab really knocked it out of the park. Every single one of Nick Frost’s descriptions of local pubgoers was made up on the spot, with no guidance from the writing team. The pubgoer descriptions may have been totally different if they chose a different actor. Thankfully, Frost had an amazing sense of humor and was able to improvise on the spot.

This line might be a little bit gross and immature, but that’s exactly what made John Belushi’s character so darn lovable. This introduction to the Animal House character was unorthodox, but that wasn’t part of the plan. Belushi actually added it in as a way to make his character more endearing to the audience. It worked like a charm and bolstered the movie into the mainstream consciousness.

Orson Welles’ Third Man performance was one for the ages, that’s for sure. The script itself was created by the great screenplay author Graham Greene—one of the greatest movie writers in history. Welles was a brave actor who added his own special twist to a script that everyone else felt was set in stone. This little speech was totally improvised, and kept as part of the movie.

The Devil Wears Prada was a film that really seemed like it’d go by the book, especially since it was based off a book. That might be why it’s one of the more surprising entries on this list. This snarky line was delivered by Emily Blunt as part of a rather caustic phone conversation. Like many ad libbed scenes, this line was inspired by an event Blunt witnessed off set. She overheard a mom tell her child this and decided it worked for the script.

Saving Private Ryan had a lot of “guy talk” throughout the film, and this line might just seem like a simple cheap play off the old schoolyard joke about falling off the ugly tree. Was it lazy writing, or realistic chitchat written in for added relatability? Hint: it was neither. The entire story narrated by Matt Damon in this scene was improvised right on the spot. It wasn’t written in. It was him being his character, to a scary level of realism.

No one can forget the craziness that Zoolander brought to the fashion world. Ben Stiller’s titular character was known for his air-headed behavior, kind heart, and Blue Steel look. During the scene where Zoolander learns about the evil plot to use male models for political attacks, Ben Stiller forgot his line. Rather than call a cut when Stiller repeated the line, actor David Duchovny decided to stay in character. "You serious? I just told you that a moment ago." It worked well.

This line has been repeated by plenty of gamers, Stewie from Family Guy, and even gets the occasional mention in video games too. Believe it or not, this classic line from Aliens wasn’t actually a part of the script despite being one of the most iconic lines in science fiction. Bill Paxton improvised the line as a way to add a little extra drama to the scene. James Cameron loved it and kept it in the reel.

People say weird things when they’re in pain, but The 40-Year-Old Virgin took strange to a whole new level during the famous waxing scene. The waxing scene was a little more realistic than Steve Carell may have wanted it to be, which is why it was so popular. The scene didn’t use fake hair or fake wax. What you saw was very real, as was Carell’s pain. It just so happened he screamed Kelly Clarkson’s name when he was getting waxed on cam.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Draco Malfoy’s character was meant to be a mean spirited little bully. For the most part, the barbs and banter were already added into the script thanks to J.K. Rowling. However, there was one little jab that wasn’t meant to be part of the movie. When Malfoy told Harry (who had used a potion to look like Goyle) he was surprised he could read, that was actually an ad libbed insult that actor Tom Felton made up. It worked well, so they kept it in.

Though live action movies are usually the ones that have ad libbed lines, it is possible for the occasional improvised line to make it to animated flicks. Due to the demands it places on animators, ad libs have to be really great to actually make it into animated movies. Frozen actually had an improvised line that made it into the actual film. When Olaf says he’s impaled, the line was actually the work of Josh Gad.

No one could ever forget the wild fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally. It’s become a major joke in pop culture, referenced by just about every sitcom out there. At the time, it was a groundbreaking scene that brought sexuality to the forefront. The line above was a zinger that just had to be written by a great humorist, right? Not quite! This saucy joke was suggested by Billy Crystal, and was immediately approved after they tried it out.

Knocked Up had plenty of raunchy moments, including some that were not released in theaters. This scene involved two characters asking one another what tipped them off to the other person being gay. The entire scene was all about slinging barbs, zingers, and jabs at one another. All the jokes you hear during this scene are improvised by the two actors, who had a ton of fun filming it.

Terminator 2 was one hell of a busy movie, especially considering that the fate of the future was at stake once again. The high drama science fiction favorite has tons of lines that make people smile with nostalgia and cheer on the good guys. Much of this movie was carefully planned out and choreographed to perfection. This line, though, wasn’t a planned one. It just slipped out of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and ended up making everyone laugh enough to include as part of the script.

This Is Spinal Tap followed the lives of band members in the world of 80s hair metal, and it was a real trip. The three lead actors were skilled at adding realistic ad libs to the script. They also were fairly liberal with their improvisation. How liberal they got shocked writers and directors alike. Due to the sheer amount of improv they did during filming, all three leads got writing credits at the end of the movie.

Marvel Studios rewrote the rules on movie storytelling thanks to their sprawling decade-long film series that brought beloved superheroes to the big screen. It all started in 2008 with Iron Man, a surprise box office hit, considering the character had been mid-tier in the comics for decades. But Robert Downey Jr.'s signature take on the role helped catapult the Marvel Cinematic Universe through 20-plus films to Avengers: Endgame. So it was only fitting that he would be given one of the most iconic moments in the series...except it almost never was. In the climax of Endgame, Thanos reiterates his "I am inevitable" line from Avengers: Infinity War. However, Iron Man has tricked the "Mad Titan" and at that moment says, "And I...am...Iron Man." The line wasn't in the original script for Endgame. So where did it come from? In the original scene Downey Jr. had no line there. He just snapped his fingers. The directors felt the scene was lacking. They brainstormed and someone said, "What if he says, 'I am Iron Man?'," a callback to the original Iron Man film. They immediately called Downey Jr. to do a reshoot to get it into the movie.

Tony Stark's heroic final line in Endgame isn't the only Marvel Cinematic Universe representation on our list. In the prior Avengers film, 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) delivers a devastating "I don't wanna go" just as he's erased from existence. As Holland explained in a 2019 interview, he originally wasn't supposed to say the words out loud. "... A technique I do if I'm trying to cry is I'll say a phrase over and over again,... In that scene it was 'I don't wanna go,' and I just thought I would say it out loud and it works. It's really good in the film."

Bill Murray's "Cinderella Story" monologue in Caddyshack might be the film's most famous moment... and it was completely ad-libbed. According to director Harold Ramis, "All it said in the script is: Carl is outside of the clubhouse practicing his golf swing, cutting the tops off flowers with a grass whip. Murray has also spoken about the monologue, saying, "I was good back in those days. I could do something when they turned the camera on. I was wired into what I was talking about. Improvising about golf was easy for me. And it was fun. It wasn't difficult to come up with stuff. And there was a great crowd of people there to entertain."

Originally, Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly's line in the climactic limo conversation in The Devil Wears Prada was meant to be "Everyone wants to be me." However, Streep changed thin to Everyone wants to be us" to further the thematic idea that Anne Hathaway's Andy was becoming just like Miranda.

Matthew McConaughey's iconic delivery of "alright... alright... alright" in Dazed and Confused was inspired by Jim Morrison's stage banter on a live Doors album. According to he actor, the inspiration came to him between takes: "So right before we're about to go I'm like, 'What is Wooderson about?' And I go, 'He's about four things: He's about you, know, his car, he's about gettin' high, he's about rock 'n' roll and pickin' up chicks.' I go, 'I'm in my car, I'm high as a kite, I'm listenin' to rock 'n' roll ...' Action ... and there's the chick. Alright, alright, alright ... three out of four."

While filming the hit supernatural romance Ghost, Whoopi Goldberg punched up the script to fit her persona. For example, she reworked a more straightforward line into the more "Whoopian" "Molly, you in danger girl!"

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is arguably the most quotable move of the century so far, but one of it's most repeated lines was in fact an ad-lib. According to Steve Carell, "[Director] Adam [McKay] was like, 'We should have more lines for you, but we don't have any on the page.' He literally said 'Just say something,' and hence came 'I ate a big red candle' and 'I love lamp. The 'I love lamp' thing was just me at the end of a scene staring at a lamp and I said 'I love lamp' and Will [Ferrell] picked up on it and said, 'You're just saying things you're looking at."Source: Dreamworks

Bruce Willis' iconic Die Hard line and catchphrase was slightly altered by the actor prior to filming. Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza told The Hollywood Reporter, "I wrote 'Yippee-ki-yay, a--hole, but Bruce, on his final take, ad-libbed the 'motherf---er,' much to the amusement of the crew. The studio nervously left it in for the first test screening and the reaction made it permanent."

The ageless Paul Rudd delivered this line in 1995's Clueless, but it wasn't scripted. Rather, it was an improvised callback to Rudd's costar Donald Faison. As Faison explained years later, "When you see us laughing at the end, we're literally laughing for real because nobody expected him to say that. And how he said it. I think sometimes I would say, 'I'm bugging.' Not buggin', bugging — 'I'm bugging myself.'" Rudd himself added, "And then we kept trying to do different versions of it. Then we all couldn't stop laughing for a little too long."

According to an interview with actress Heather Matarazzo her iconic Princess Diaries line was ad-libbed at the suggestion of producer Debra Martin Chase. "Debra Martin Chase, who was one of the producers, was like, 'Say something like, Not you, I don't even know you.' That was the kind of set, where it was just collaboration, and just wanting to make the best film possible, and a lot of laughs and a lot of love," Matarazzo recalled.

According to an interview with Billy Crystal, he improvised many of his lines during his appearance in he cult classic The Princess Bride. "We ad-libbed a lot of stuff: "Have fun storming the castle." "Don't go swimming for an hour — a good hour. There was a lot of really funny stuff that never made it into the movie."

This famous line from 2003's How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was ad-libbed out of director Donald Petrie's desire to built chemistry between his stars. He said in a 2003 interview, "There can be great chemistry, but if it happens at the water cooler when the cameras aren't rolling, you've got nothing... I'd go over to Kate and say, 'OK, in this next take, don't tell Matthew, but do this.'"