Well, the malfunctions happen on set too, maybe even more! Here are 19 times actors had wardrobe malfunctions on set:
1.
While filming Bridgerton, Jonathan Bailey accidentally tore his pants on camera. He told Grazia UK, “Obviously, the costumes were incredible across the board, and as men, we didn’t have to worry about restricted clothing like the women in their corsets. However, the fencing outfits were quite tight in various places. On the day of the fencing sequence, we were wearing plimsoles on grass, and it was a very dewy morning. As I was going into for my final lunge with Benedict [Bridgerton], my crotch ripped, and it’s all captured on camera! There was that moment when I suddenly realized I was being filmed by four different cameras and sort of screamed…It was just so embarrassing!”
2.
Elizabeth Olsen had a wardrobe malfunction while filming a scene in public. She told People, “I had to be sewn into a bathing suit. You have to make these costumes so quickly, and the zipper malfunctioned.”
She said her dresser was “so good and so quick to stitch [her] in.” Elizabeth added, “There’s always that fear that it’s just going to burst — and you have 100 extras around.”
3.
Alison Brie struggled with the period-accurate undergarments on Mad Men. She told Late Night with Seth Myers, “They were a bit restrictive, and there’s a bit of a learning curve, I think, in terms of figuring out, kind of, how to wear them. I don’t know if you know what a girdle is like. It’s sort of like olden-day Spanx, so it had boning. It starts, like, here under the boobs and goes all the way down and turns into, like, bike shorts, essentially. Super sexy. And it has, like boning through [the middle] and is very tight and gives us that amazing shape and whatnot. But basically, you’re supposed it wear it, like, as underwear. You’re not really supposed to wear modern underwear underneath it, ’cause it’s your underwear. But I didn’t know that for, like, a season and a half of Mad Men.”
She continued, “I just had underwear that were also very difficult to reach, like, under layers of skirts and all this stuff. So, it proved problematic when they were taking me to set one day, and I, like, really had to pee. You know, as you do. You have to pee. I was still new to the show, and I think I never wanted to cause any trouble, you know. So I was just sort of like, ‘Yes! I’m ready to go right now! No problem!’ on the way to set and was just immediately like, ‘I can’t. We can’t go all the way. Please let me stop and go to the bathroom.’ And they were like, ‘Great, no problem.’ So I go into the bathroom, and I’m like lifting — it’s like you’re really working blind, you know. You’re lifting up under all the skirts, and you can sort of — the girdles are made so you can, like, kind of pull it to the side and use the bathroom. They thought of everything! Except that I had a pair of underwear underneath.”
“This is getting sort of graphic. So, like, I was sort of reaching and feeling like things are fine, and I’m doing, like, a crazy hover over this, like, public bathroom stall on the way to the set. And I just start peeing, and I, like, can’t hear the pee hitting the toilet. So I realized I missed my underwear. They didn’t quite make it out of the way. And I just did a full pee. A full — it was not a slight trickle. There was no stopping it in the middle. I just got very warm. Just soaked. There was no time,” she said.
“I, like, tried to pat it down with toilet paper. And then someone was outside, like, ‘We have to go!’ So I just went to set and shot a full scene…The costume designer knew ’cause, like, halfway through shooting the scene, she came in. Janie Bryant was our costume designer. So incredible, and also, like, a wonderful person. So she came in, and she was like, ‘Do you hate your costume? You look so uncomfortable.’ And I was just like, ‘There’s pee. I peed all in it. It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere.’ And she said, ‘It happens more often than you think,'” she concluded.
For context, this is what a girdle looks like:
4.
Sterling K. Brown’s abs inadvertently protected Regina Hall during a wardrobe malfunction while they were filming Honk for Jesus. Save. Your Soul. She told The Late Late Show with James Corden, “My actual breasts popped out during a scene, and no one noticed it, and I’m thinking it’s because they were looking at him. The directors didn’t notice it, Sterling didn’t notice it… And no crew. The first AD. No one noticed it. The [director of photography] finally. Probably caught a reflection on his abs. They were like, ‘Someone’s gotta put that distracting thing in.'”
5.
Olivia Newton-John’s costume for the final scene in Grease was damaged before her first fitting. She told Lorraine, “The zip is broken, so even when I tried them on in the trailer the first time, they had to sew me in. They didn’t want to change it in case it ruined the fabric or something, so they just sewed me into it.”
6.
In Grease 2, there’s an infamous NSFW wardrobe malfunction where a background actor jumps a hurdle, and his testicles are visible from the hem of his shorts. Lead actor Maxwell Caulfield told Entertainment Weekly, “I cannot believe it made the final cut. There’s a side of me that thinks it’s been CGI’d…Knowing who was jumping those high hurdles with those unfortunately short shorts, he was a flasher. He flashed us all. He broke up the entire set when he did it. When we’re all doing those end credits where we’re all throwing the mortar boards in the air and jumping off a trampoline below camera up into frame, he came tearing across the campus with a black cape on and a black helmet. He was streaking. The crown jewels were there for us all to see. But he had good reason to be proud of himself.”
“If indeed that little sequence was really in the final cut and not something that is just doing the rounds now on the internet having been altered, then it’s outrageous. Though I won’t name who it was, because he’s actually quite a celebrated member of the director’s guild,” Maxwell said.
7.
Eddie Redmayne’s “most embarrassing moment on set” involved splitting his pants. He told British Vogue, “In the Fantastic Beasts movie, doing the Erumpent mating dance. It was humiliating anyway, but I managed to rip my trousers. My arse was on show for everyone to see on a night shoot in the middle of Watford.”
8.
Emily Blunt told Glamour she experienced “a thousand” wardrobe malfunctions on the set of The Wolfman. She said, “When you are running in a skirt of that length, it’s so embarrassing. You definitely run like a girl. You can’t help it. I fell over. I ripped my dress constantly. People stood on my dress constantly. I broke two corsets. There was a lot of that going on. I almost broke my coccyx walking backwards because I tripped on it.”
9.
While filming Landman, Billy Bob Thornton depended on his costar Ali Larter to save him from a wardrobe malfunction. On The Kelly Clarkson Show, he explained that he had trouble keeping his baggy jeans up. So, as she demonstrated on the talk show, Ali would pull his pants up for him when she noticed them falling.
Ali added, “Right before! It’s like, ‘Action!’ [Yank]. Let’s get ’em up, and off we go. And I’m following him, so I had to make sure I wasn’t having all crack in my face.”
10.
In the 2019 Saturday Night Live sketch “Inside the Beltway,” Aidy Bryant played a talk show host commenting on the Trump presidency. In flashbacks, she changed outfits, requiring lightning-fast wardrobe changes. However, her dresser, Audrey, accidentally went onstage a little too early.
On Instagram, Aidy shared her appreciation for her dresser, writing, “last night on @nbcsnl you got to sneak a little peek at one of my favorite people audrey aka @celestialwilderness aka my dresser for the last seven years! I just adore this woman and she has helped me pull pants on in the dark, become a chicken, a teacher, a dinosaur and always helps me feel confident to get up there and do it. BY DAY she is a real deal park ranger teaching kids about protecting the wilderness and on Saturday nights I get to have her by my side. And for many many years her lovely mother vicki jo has been kenan’s dresser! This is a family affair and I just love audrey! Our crew makes it all happen. 💕🌱💕”
11.
Andy Samberg’s short shorts came really close to a wardrobe malfunction while filming the music video “Here I Go (ft. Charli xcx)” for Saturday Night Live. On The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, he said, “There was a lot of debate about how high my shorts should be. And I kept being like, ‘Well, Charli’s are gonna be pretty high because that’s how she rolls, so I should really have mine high.’ I was like, ‘Should I be in the exact same outfit as her?’ And I was like, ‘Well no, I don’t think anybody actually wants to see that, despite what they might think.”
He continued, “I was like, ‘ So just cut them higher.’ And they cut them higher, and I was like, ‘I don’t know, maybe I should go higher.’ And then as soon as we started, like, really dancing, I really almost flopped out. I was like, ‘Oh no!’ I was like, ‘Thank God we did not make it any higher ’cause it would have been really bad.'”
12.
On the set of The Soul Man, Sherri Shepherd told TV Land, “We had to do a scene yesterday where I flounced off, and my wig came off. I didn’t realize my wig came off. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I am so funny, ’cause everybody’s laughing.’ My hair was on the floor.”
13.
The Witcher costume designer Tim Aslam told Polygon that Henry Cavill’s muscles wore down the leather of his Geralt costumes so rapidly that they had to keep making replacements around the clock.
14.
Sofia Carson ripped her pants while filming Carry-On. She told Cosmopolitan UK, “I actually ran so hard that my pants broke doing [an] action sequence. The pants split ’cause we were running so much and squatting and doing all these things. My pants split, so I was like, ‘Okay, this is funny.'”
15.
In Daredevil, Jennifer Garner’s Elektra costume caused a hold-up every time she needed a restroom break. She told Glamour, “I had to be cut out of and sewn into the pleather pants every time I had to pee, and that was, like, a 45-minute undertaking. So, I definitely held it, and I had so many chicken cutlet fake boobs in to make Elektra’s boobs. I think there were, like, three on each side of different sizes, Everything was pushed up and out. I was just this close to a wardrobe malfunction at all times. There’s not enough tape in the world to make this stuff safe.” She also said that she was super involved with the fittings and was able to advocate for her own needs.
16.
Scarlett Johannsson’s stunt work on the set of The Avengers “shredded” her Black Widow costumes, requiring a new replacement every couple of days. She told Nightline, “They’re like tires. You would just go through sets of them. Every time you get a new costume, you just feel real nice, and then three days later, it’s like the discount Widow.”
17.
Brec Bassinger’s superhero suits for DC’s Stargirl were made to fit perfectly, but they constantly tore. She told CinemaBlend, “Honestly, it wasn’t too restrictive. Well, you know what? I didn’t let it be restrictive. It was very tight. Like, that thing was custom-made to my body. It fit me to the millimeter. But I didn’t let it, like, prohibit me from doing anything. There was even one day – it was the fifth episode – I bent down, and I ripped a pair of shorts. So we went and put on a brand new pair of shorts. I walked out, and I ripped those, too. I definitely went through my fair share of tops and shorts just from ripping them, like in a scene or strictly just bending down. But they never wanted me to prohibit my acting or my fight scenes because of that.”
18.
Unfortunately for actors, wardrobe malfunctions aren’t limited to on-camera work. While rehearsing for the Broadway musical The Last Five Years, Nick Jonas ripped his pants. On Instagram, he said, “I was singing ‘Moving Too Fast,’ one of my character Jamie’s songs. I’m supposed to jump onto this platform and, you know, then pull my co-star, Adrienne Warren, up onto the platform with me and keep singing. I’m in front of our director, Whitney White; Jason Robert Brown, the composer of the show; and of course, my co-star, Adrienne Warren; the stage management department; musical director; pianist; and percussionist. And I do it, and I hear a [ripping sound]. And I’m like, ‘Oh no, oh no.’ And I feel a cool breeze in a place you don’t want to feel a cool breeze. This is what happened to my pants.”
He continued, “The whole way down. They’re not tight pants by any means. It just was the perfect spot and the position that I jumped up. Tried to duct tape it; didn’t work. Tried to put some safety pins in; didn’t hold. So thankfully, the stage management department jumped over to Target and bought me some black shorts to finish rehearsals in.”
19.
And finally, while Mean Girls The Musical was doing its out-of-town tryout, Erika Henningsen experienced a live wardrobe malfunction. Her castmate Barrett Wilbert Weed told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, “It actually happened on the stage. We were in Washington, DC. There’s a really cool costume change that happens with Erika, who plays Cady, where she goes from being in a Halloween costume to being in, like, a normal person costume. It happens, like, in less than a second, and it’s very exciting. When we were in DC, it used to be accompanied by a huge light cue. So it would get really dark, then the lights would come up. And she’d be in a different outfit, and everyone would [applaud], like, very excited. Broadway magic.”
Barrett continued, “And there was a day where the lights went down, the cool cue happened, the lights came up, and Erika started her scene when she’s directly to me. And the shirt that she was wearing was, like, this beautiful silk spaghetti strap tank top. And her shirt was just, like, around her waist. So, she just, like, [had her] boobs out. She was wearing a bra, which was good. But other than that, just full shirt around her waist. And if you’ve ever worn a silk shirt, you know that when you wear it, you sometimes forget that you’re wearing it, ’cause it doesn’t feel like you’re wearing clothes. It’s, like, very light and airy. So Erika had no idea and just kept, like, barrelling through with the scene. And I was wearing…a heavy, big, green coat. And I realized that she had absolutely no idea that her shirt was around her waist.”
She continued, “So, I just kind of went…I, like, saw my hands go out in front of my body, and I kind of, like, walked over to her and tried to, like, pick her shirt up and, like, put it back over her. And then, in my brain, I was like, ‘Maybe I can tie the straps.’ And the scene is still going. We’re still talking. We’re still in the scene, and she’s now realized that something is wrong. I wind up behind her, trying to tie the straps. Doesn’t work. Grey [Henson], who plays Damian who’s also in this scene, has now realized what is going on and, like, gets behind her and is, like, holding her shirt. And then I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m wearing a jacket. I’ll just take my jacket off and put it on her.’ We’re still talking. We’re still doing the scene. The audience is, like, going crazy, and people are, like, falling out of their chairs laughing ’cause there’s, like, a half-naked person on stage.”
“I take my jacket off, and I go to put it on Erika. And she and I are still having this scene. Grey gets in front of her, gets on his knees, and starts buttoning up the jacket because it’s a jacket that had never been zippered before. So he was like, ‘I don’t know what to do’ and started furiously buttoning up the jacket. We got the jacket fully buttoned in time to start ‘Revenge Party,’ which is, like, a really, like, goofy, huge number where we all have to, like, jump around and dance. You need to have clothes on for it. We start doing the number, and Ashley Park, who plays Gretchen, comes on, and she has, like, a tiny little scene right before we started the number. And she comes on and just didn’t know what was going on and looked at Erika wearing my, like giant jacket and just goes, ‘Hi, nice jacket.’ And then we all, like, completely dissolved into, like, hysterical laughter,” she said.
