Hostility on the Set

Klaus Kinski has a slight disagreement with Werner Herzog on the set of Cobra Verde.^note Unsurprisingly, it was the last film they made together.

"I'm fond of Captain Kirk, but I'm not terribly fond of Bill Shatner."

— James Doohan

Generally, actors tend to get along well with their co-stars, and this tends to shine through on-screen. They may develop a Friendship on the Set that lasts beyond production, and a Romance on the Set may ensue in some cases.

This is not about those actors.

In some cases, some actors may be at each other's throats during filming or even a director with one or more actors. While this does not always show on the big screen, it can cause issues like a lack of chemistry between the actors. On the other hand, if the characters they are playing are antagonistic to each other, this can help add authenticity to their performances and increase their respect for each other.

This may occur due to, or even be the cause of a Troubled Production and/or Creative Differences, or just simple differences of personality and working style. It can also be caused by a Creator Breakdown on the part of one or more actors, or the director. Often leads to Teeth-Clenched Teamwork and is a cornerstone of Horrible Hollywood. Compare Wag the Director, when the main stars create conflict with the director by running circles around them, and its polar opposite, the Prima Donna Director.

On a different note, consider that the audience has a much different perspective of making a movie than the cast and crew. Two people may be the best of friends in the regular world but constantly butt heads when in a stressful, professional setting like a movie set. As such, while there may be hostility that doesn't mean they actually hate and despise each other. There are many instances where in interviews people try drumming up that drama and they will be the first to defend their co-star.

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Example subpages:

• Films — Live-Action
• Live-Action TV
  • Saturday Night Live
• Music
• Professional Wrestling
• Western Animation

Other examples:

Real Life:

Adult Films

• Unsurprisingly, this happens in the adult film industry too, where the egos of the performers are possibly even higher than those of regular actors:
  • Lexington Steele almost got into a fistfight with Mark Anthony while shooting an orgy scene in Prague for letting him do all the heavy lifting.
  • Manuel Ferrera despised Sasha Grey's "phony" performance during a threesome scene with Sandra Romain so much that at one point he actually shoved her aside and forced her to watch them (and ended up winning an award for it, ironically).
  • Nikki Benz was gagged and punched in the head by a Prima Donna Director who subsequently got fired after she publicly called him out on his abuse.
  • Kristina Rose flung at Abella Danger on a set after the latter told porn mogul Mark Spiegler that Rose also worked as a prostitute.

Anime and Manga

• A bit of a downplayed example, but rather notable for an industry that tries its darndest to project a cheerful image 24/7: Ayane Sakura and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka are something of a real life Sitcom Archnemesis to one another. As reported by seiyuu watchers, they have a history with each other due to having been peers in the same voice acting training school in the late 2000s. With Matsuoka having No Social Skills at the time, he made a terrible first impression on her, and as the years have gone by, her reactions to his presence have grown more and more negative (such as rolling her eyes or pretending to gag when he gets brought up), while he seems to be intimidated by her in general (despite being almost 8 years older). They have been cast in many anime together and are able to be professional around each other then, but things tend to get awkward on offset events such as web radio broadcasts. There is speculation this supposedly terrible relationship between them may be heavily exaggerated by their agents and the hosts for these types of events as a kind of Kayfabe with a core of truth to it that straddles the line of being a Worked Shoot.
• Longstanding friction between Tite Kubo and the editors of Shonen Jump contributed to the demise of Bleach. Despite the exposure having his story featured in Jump afforded him (with Bleach at one point being considered part of the magazine's "Big Three" alongside One Piece and Naruto), Kubo resented what he saw as the editors' attempts to interfere in the story he wanted to tell and was not afraid to publicly say so. How the editors at Jump felt about Kubo's sentiment can be gleaned from Ichigo's gradual Billing Displacement on Jump's covers over the years, despite him being the main character of what was ostensibly one of the magazine's major titles. This chilly working relationship (along with Kubo suffering from exhaustion and health problems) contributed to his decision to end the series in 2016.
• One-time example: During a break in recording for Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, Kōichi Yamadera - who was new to the entire seiyuu industry at the time, not just the series - mused out loud about Amuro Ray being a "good guy" and Char Aznable being a "bad guy"; Shūichi Ikeda (who plays Char) gave him a rather nasty earful in retaliation, insulting Yamadera for being unable to realize that Gundam thrives on Gray-and-Grey Morality. Thankfully, Ikeda apologized afterward.
• The 2001 anime adaptation of Fruits Basket was an unpleasant experience for creator Natsuki Takaya, who frequently clashed with director Akitaroh Daichi's vision. It got to the point where Takaya and Daichi refused to work with each other again after production was finished.
• English dub examples:
  • Tristan MacAvery had a massive fallout with Matt Greenfield, resulting in him no longer getting work at ADV Films. He hasn't worked in anime since, and his role of Gendo Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion was taken over by John Swasey in further media.
  • Sailor Moon's original dub from Optimum Productions had a lot of backstage drama involving producer Nicole Thuault, who was notoriously very difficult to work with. She had fallouts with every single director on the project, including Tracey Moore (who was also the first voice for the title character), Roland Parliament, and John Stocker, resulting in all of their departures, one right after the other. She then took on directing duties herself with the S and SuperS seasons, despite the fact that she only spoke French. This is usually blamed for the decline in quality in the dub for those seasons.
  • Stephanie Nadolny lost her ongoing roles of Kid Goku and Kid Gohan in the Dragon Ball franchise amid some kind of fallout between her and Funimation, possibly involving Christopher Sabat. The exact nature of the fallout isn't clear, but she claims that she hasn't been able to even audition for the studio since 2009 because of the drama that took place.

Fanworks

• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Crossoverpairinglover and the fanfic image creator Vinylshadow vehemently dislike each other, and any interaction they have on SpaceBattles.com involves the two taking jabs at the other until they are told to break it off, quite often pages later. The reasons for this are mostly a clash of writing styles and preferences (Cross prefers long chaptered stories led by canon characters while Vinyl prefers shorter chaptered stories with original characters), as well as Vinyl's preference to trolly responses which easily rile up Cross.
• The writing team behind The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum experienced this over the last year before its cancellation. The main driving cause was Creative Differences, with head writer Redskin122004 clashing with co-writers VoxAdam, Sledge115, and JedR in particular over the depictions of certain characters and the direction of certain plot elements. These disagreements soon worsened and became increasingly more personal, as Jed, Vox, Doctor Fluffy, Kizuna Tallis, and Sledge detailed in their recollections on the matter. These problems came to a head in May 2017, where an explosive argument between Red and the other writers over the direction of the last story arc culminated with both sides deciding they had enough and threw in the towel, with an acrimonious split to top it off. Since then, Red took a long break from writing to collect his thoughts (as much of his behavior at the time had been caused by an especially severe case of Creator Breakdown) and ultimately left Fimfiction permanently to focus on other non-MLP projects while the other writers decided to launch a Continuity Reboot titled Spectrum and start over fresh.
• The posting of Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Messiah saw the escalation of hostilities between two of the people involved in its creation, Occam Razor (then known as Cyber Commander on FF.net and Dark Sage on the Pokemasters Forums, where the story was originally posted) and Man Called True (Master of Paradox on the Pokemasters Forums). Man Called True was originally recruited as the story's beta reader, in part because the story was set in the same universe as his story, Yu-Gi-Oh: Tilting the Balance. However, he began to give increasingly acidic advice, until Occam Razor finally fired him. The two continued to clash after that, until they finally had a massive falling-out where Man Called True accused Occam Razor of plagiarism and relying too much on pop culture references. Occam Razor would eventually be banned from Pokemasters (due to unrelated political drama), but the two have never reconciled, as shown by this series of comments on Man Called True's Livejournal.

Films — Animation

• Pinocchio: Christian Rub, the voice actor for Gepetto, was a Nazi sympathizer (at the beginning of World War II no less) and frequently upset the cast and crew members by going on tangents where he praised Hitler's actions. The crew members eventually got revenge on him when it was time to film him on a rocking boat set for the animators to use as a reference. They apparently rocked the set so hard, they gave him "the ride of his life".
• The Fox and the Hound: Brad Bird, who was vocally dissatisfied with the production throughout his time on it, once related a story about being confronted by the studio heads, production manager, and one of the film's directors for "being difficult," which resulted in some brutally honest words being exchanged and Bird's immediate firing right after.
  I was standing up for the principles that the old Disney masters had taught me. The leaders didn't like that and they wanted me to shut up, and one of the directors said, "Why are you so vocal??" And I said, "Well, I don't think this is being very well run, and if you feel that I'm standing between you and doing your job, it is your job to fire me". And the production manager actually mimed ripping off my stripes, like "You were a golden boy and you are now disgraced!" Then they kinda looked at me and I realized "Well, this is it, this is the end of a long thing that started when I was a kid", so I said, "Well, it's been..." and I stopped, and I couldn't think of how to finish the sentence 'cause it hadn't really been thought. The pause was filled by the director who said "...a disappointment!" And I went, "Yeah, a disappointment."
• During production on The Iron Giant, director Brad Bird and producer Allison Abbate frequently clashed over the film's direction. In the documentary The Giant's Dream, Bird, Abbate, and other staff members recalled that pressure from Warner Bros. executives to get the film done on time and on budget combined with Bird's lofty ambitions led to friction between the two, and the resulting arguments were loud enough for the rest of the crew to overhear and be unnerved by, especially artistic coordinator Scott F. Johnston, whose office was situated right next to Abbate's.

Radio

• Emma Vigeland of The Young Turks admitted in a 2020 interview that she didn't like Jimmy Dore when he was still with the show, claiming that he mistreated behind-the-scenes staffers despite claiming to be an advocate for workers.

Sports

• While fights with opposing players/teams are pretty common in sports, that's not really an example of this trope. Teammates fighting each other (or their coaches) definitely is though:
  • While they never came to blows it was no secret that former LA Lakers teammates Kobe Bryant (who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2020) and Shaquille O'Neal absolutely hated each other's guts, to the point that O'Neal briefly resumed his rap career just to release a Diss Track slamming Kobe. Didn't stop them from winning 3 NBA titles together.
  • Michael Jordan once punched teammate Steve Kerr (best known today for being the coach of the Golden State Warriors when the Warriors were dominating the league in the late 2010s) in the face during practice over the latter's lack of hustle. They also won 3 titles together.
  • After a dispute over gambling debts, Washington Wizards teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton went so far as to draw guns on each other in the Wizards locker room. This obvious violation of both NBA rules and District of Columbia laws saw both players suspended indefinitely and charged with felonies. While Arenas would resume his career and has largely stayed out of trouble since, Crittenton (already a fringe player to begin with) was basically declared Persona Non Grata and was recently released from prison after serving 10 years for manslaughter. Arenas and Crittenton very much did not win three titles together.
  • Probably the most famous NBA example would be then-Golden State Warriors star Latrell Sprewell choking out his head coach P. J. Carlesimo after an argument about lazy passing during a practice, then coming back 20 minutes later and punching Carlesimo in the jaw. (This was after Sprewell fought teammate Jerome Kersey and threatened him with a 2x4 two years prior.) Sprewell would be suspended 68 games by the NBA (the longest in league history at the time). The Warriors later tried to void his $23 million contract but this was overturned in arbitration.
  • This is so common in baseball that it's easier to just show a few compilation videos.
  • In the NFL, we had New York Jets fourth string linebacker IK Enemkpali punching starting QB Geno Smith and breaking his jaw over $600. Enemkpali would immediately be cut and was out of the league the following year, Smith would wash out with the Jets but win Comeback Player of the Year in 2022 with the Seahawks.
  • In 1993, Houston Oilers defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan (who was already known for being very difficult to work with/coach against, something that both Mike Ditka and Jimmy Johnson can attest to) slugged offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride on the sidelines (during a nationally televised game no less) after the former got sick of the latter's poor play calling. Ryan would leave the team at the end of the season.
  • NHL players love this so much that a YouTuber made a four part video series (so far) about it.
  • Other examples of famous teammate pairs that couldn't stand each other include Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez (NY Yankees), Mark Weber and Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull F1 team), Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent (San Francisco Giants), and the most notorious case probably being Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan on the 1994 U.S. Olympic figure skating team.

Theater

• Ron Moody noted that several members of the original West End stage cast of Oliver! (1960) did not get along saying: "It was not a happy company". He personally had a poor relationship with Georgia Brown, who was the original Nancy. When the film came to be made, Brown blamed Moody for her not being cast as Nancy. However, Moody categorically denied this, saying he had no say or influence whatsoever over the casting of the film and he himself was far from the first choice to play Fagin despite his success on stage.
• Nicol Williamson was a habitual offender.
  • In the 1970s, Williamson and Helen Mirren co-starred in a disastrous production of Macbeth where they absolutely hated each other. Years later, John Boorman cast them as enemies in Excalibur, believing that their natural animosity would be perfect. Neither realized the other was in the film until they'd signed on. However, Mirren recalled that they got on very well once they were "freed from the shackles of Macbeth".
  • In 1976, Williamson played Henry VIII in the short-lived Rex, his one foray into musical theatre. At one of the curtain calls, dancer Jim Litten whispered "That's a wrap" to one of his other colleagues. Williamson, passing by, heard him say "That was crap" and slapped Litten in the face.
  • In 1991, Williamson was cast as John Barrymore in Paul Rudnick's comedy I Hate Hamlet. Owing to his reputation, this was against the express advice of the casting director. In a 2007 New Yorker article, Rudnick recalls Williamson binge-drinking, sexually harassing the stage manager, offering unsolicited "direction" to co-stars, and—eventually—jabbing Evan Handler, the lead, in the buttocks with a prop sword during a swordplay sequence. Handler walked off the production that night and did not return to the role.
• In his autobiography The Ragman's Son, Kirk Douglas recalled appearing in The Wind is Ninety on Broadway opposite Wendell Corey, who treated him very badly. He would ignore Douglas onstage and yelled at him when he attempted to discuss it with him, then upstaged and cold-shouldered him throughout the show. And if that wasn't enough, Corey made anti-semetic remarks about Douglas behind his back. They later appeared in the film I Walk Alone, but had no scenes together. Bizarrely, when Corey died, his widow asked Douglas to give the eulogy, as they both came to Hollywood at the same time.
• Marlon Brando appeared opposite Tallulah Bankhead in a 1947 production of The Eagle Has Two Heads. He took every opportunity to upstage her - picking his nose, scratching his balls and even mooning the audience. He also ate garlic before their big love scene ("Avoiding Tallulah's tongue as best I could"). He was fired after urinating against the curtains during her big dramatic monologue.
  The next time she goes swimming, I hope whales shit on her.
• Miriam Margolyes wrote in her autobiography This Much is True that her worst professional experience was working with Glenda Jackson in a 1976 production of The White Devil. She claimed that they had "a terrible falling out. I can't remember what it was about, but I called her a cow and she called me an amateur. I think she won that one!"
  • Margolyes described her co-star as "A star actress with little patience and no humility, she has given great performances — but she didn't in The White Devil and knowing that she was rubbish made her even nastier".
  • She added that the "general mood was unpleasant" among the cast members.
  • In 2013, Margolyes said that she wished she had never starred in the production and branded Jackson as "horrid". She added on BBC Radio 4:
    I really didn't like her and I've never liked her since, even though she votes Labour and no doubt does good work in Hampstead. But goodness me, she was a pain to work with.
• Contrary to popular belief, Steptoe and Son co-stars Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell had a good professional relationship while the series was being made, even if their different lifestyles and approaches to dramatic art meant they were never close friends. However, what tensions there were between them boiled over in spectacular fashion when they signed on for a stage version of Steptoe and Son to tour Australia and New Zealand in 1977. Both were in declining health - Brambell's alcoholism had been getting worse for over a decade, while Corbett was smoking multiple packs of cigarettes a day - and sick of being typecast as Albert and Harold, so the prospect of working together reminded them of everything they were trying to get away from. On one occasion, a drunken Brambell lashed out at Corbett in front of his wife and children simply because they were travelling as a family, prompting Corbett to grab him by the collar and snarl, "Never my children." Eventually, Corbett got so sick of covering for Brambell's alcohol-fuelled bad behaviour - which sometimes included refusing to go on stage at all - that his wife Maureen had to act as a go-between. Things bottomed out during a radio interview in Christchurch when a badly hung over Brambell responded to the question of what he and Corbett thought of New Zealand's landscape and architecture with "I hate your fucking town, and it's the lowest place I've been in all my life," to Corbett's mortification. The tour never recovered, although Brambell and Corbett's relationship did; they were planning a second Australian tour when Corbett died of a heart attack in 1982.
• Actress Rebecca Caine revealed in an Instagram post that Colm Wilkinson was very abusive to her when they starred in the Toronto production of The Phantom of the Opera , to the point that he was genuinely roughing her up during "The Final Lair" sequence, resulting in her being injured—and fired in response to her numerous complaints about his behavior.

Video Games

• Balan Wonderworld: Not much is known, but if Yuji Naka's comments are anything to go by, his working relationship with Naoto Ohshima really went sour, with Naka claiming that Ohshima was among those who wanted him off the project... And such comments indicate that Ohshima wasn't alone in that sentiment, either.
• An anonymous source on the game Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion offend told about moments where the developer and the publisher would clash stating here:
  When it was explained to them at an all-hands meeting that adding the co-op stuff wouldn't just increase dev time but also the Quality assurance time. I think I recall them like yelling at us to find the time to QA it ourselves and kicking a chair. It was super uncomfortable.
• During development of Crash Bandicoot (1996), David Siller's relationship with Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin was frequently strained. It eventually got to the point where Siller was removed from production after he hired Josh Mancell of Mutato Muzika to write the music.
• During the making of Police Quest 4: Open Season, Daryl Gates' visit to Sierra headquarters was very tense, coming off the Rodney King incident. Sierra staffers, many of whom were from the L.A. area, were reportedly incensed that the company would even consider associating with Gates.
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Director Navid Khonsari recalled Ray Liotta (the voice of protagonist Tommy Vercetti) frequently complaining on set and found him difficult to work with as a result. "In some sessions he was...into it, but then sometimes...he was very dark and couldn't work", said Sam Houser. Liotta would later say he has no interest in video games, has never played or even seen Vice City or any other GTA game, and was there for the paycheck and nothing else, which might partly explain his attitude. At one point Khonsari even lost his temper and snapped on Liotta when Liotta started to complain and said he hadn't played a video game since Pac Man.
  • Burt Reynolds was described to be very hostile to deal with during the recording and the crew had a hard time working with Reynolds. At one point it got so bad, that Burt got into a heated argument where he threaten Dan Houser. Dan wanted to fire him but Khonsari talked him out of it by basically saying Reynolds is a asshole but they already got all the material out of him. The Rockstar's crew dislike for Reynolds was so strong that in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Reynolds' character Avery is brought back in a silent cameo where they Dropped a Bridge on Him by having him immediately get killed by Toni. They also give his character a Humiliation Conga on the way out by having his body cannibalized by Donald Love who, while examining Avery, discovers he wore a wig.
  • For Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, while Dan Houser did not go into details, he stated that he had issues with Chuck D of Public Enemy and that the issues were bad enough that another director had to step in to work with him.
    • The miserable experiences as mentioned above with Liotta, Reynolds, and some others was said to be a big reason why Rockstar stopped using big name actors in for their major roles in the GTA series.
• Doom Eternal: Composer Mick Gordon and producer Marty Stratton accused each other of being hard to work with or sabotaging their music, with the former claiming his tracks were mangled and taken out of his hands and the latter accusing Mick Gordon of consistently missing deadlines. In 2022, Gordon would challenge these claims in a long-form blog post, claiming that many of the promises made by id were made before he was even contracted for the game, and that he has still not been properly compensated for his work.
• L.A. Noire: Many employees described Brendan McNamara and his behavior as a tyrant and a bully and one of the angriest people in the world. He would scream and lash out at his employees if he didn't get his way and his behavior was described to be so stress-inducing, some staff members would quit after 2 weeks. Even McNamara would admit this by describing the situation as "Things got violent".
• Things went sour between Chisa Yokoyama and Maya Okamoto after the latter decided not to show up in the Sakura Wars live performances due to health reasons. Yokoyama became offended when Okamoto participated in another unrelated production at the time, causing her to believe she wanted to avoid the responsibility of doing them while making the rest of the cast look bad simultaneously. This led Yokoyama to make some rather backhanded responses about her absence constantly. Okamoto did not take this well at all and it took some convincing from composer Kohei Tanaka for them to appear together in the Budokan revue performances. Up to this day, the two of them are not on speaking terms with one another. This even extends to Super Robot Wars 30 where Sakura (Yokoyama's character) references every one of her teammates in the aforementioned series except for Orihime (Okamoto's character).
• Sonic X-treme: Due to internal politics heavily affecting the game especially between the two teams due to how the management was structured. As mentioned by game producer Mike Walles:
  Mike Walles: We had artists doing art for levels that hadn’t even been concepted out, We had programmers waiting and waiting and waiting until every minute detail had been concepted out, And we had designers doing whatever the hell they wanted. It was a mess and because of the internal politics (The art director had trained his art team to hate the designers and programers)” It was difficult to get any work done.
  • One of the animators would constantly complain about working too hard and verbally harassing the other employees. The final straw was when he walked out in the middle of a meeting leading to his firing the next day. He was described by producer Mike Walles as “Being an ass”.
  • A few stories by dev team members singled out Yuji Naka as being difficult to work with, stating that he was not supportive of the development of the game, feeling that Sonic Team should be the only developers of Sonic games, and outright threatened to leave SEGA if the team used the engine of NiGHTS into Dreams…, sabotaging development for X-treme.
• Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly: During the game's troubled production hostility between employees was rampant, with one major case going to a worker who would snap on a whim and spent a lot of time in confrontations, even escalating to the point of violence on numerous occasions. Other employees would get in arguments often and this in turn led to a very toxic environment that was very difficult to stay productive in.
• The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning: During the recording sessions, Sparx's voice actor, David Spade, had never done voice acting in a video game before and didn't understand the process, giving the audio crew a hard time about how he didn't like it. Because of that, Spade wasn't asked back for the sequels.
• One of the reasons that Superman 64 was the way it was is due to the new management of Warner Licensing, who hated the team and their project mainly because they wanted a high profile developer to create the game. The Warner Licensing management went on their way to sabotage the game by requesting nonsensical gameplay ideas, such as making the game a SimCity clone and rejecting features such as Superman swimming under water.

Web Animation

• Eddsworld
  • According to Edd, Tom and Tord interacted directly with one another when he had computer problems, leading to them finding out they weren't fond of each other. Not much is known other than Tord making fun of Tom for his religious views, and the two later making comics where the punchline is the other dying. However the grudge slowly faded out and both have buried the hatchet, with Tord apologizing for mocking Tom's religion in his lost explanation video, and Tom confirming that bantering with Tord when they were pubescent was not a contributing factor in making Tord a villain in the End.
  • Chris O'Neil called out Tom for putting ASDF Movie references in "Fun Dead", which he saw as disrespectful, and for other grievances. This likely caused him to have his role of Eduardo be recasted to Brock Baker.

Web Videos

• The Channel Awesome anniversary movies:
  • Dan Rizzo a.k.a. That Aussie Guy didn't make himself popular while making TGWTG Year One Brawl. In addition to Slut-Shaming Lindsay Ellis, Noah Antwiler revealed in his commentary to finding him annoying, even going so far as to say, "God, I hate that man". His tenure on the site didn't last much longer.
  • The biggest fight that the Walkers had over Kickassia was the scene when Film Brain captures The Cinema Snob for the trial. Rob had felt that music should have been played over the scene (he told Mathew Buck to make the weird sounds for this reason). Doug on the other hand felt the music was playing in Film Brain's head and didn't feel that music was necessary. Doug and Rob didn't talk to each other for a week because of this.
  • While making To Boldly Flee, the Walkers constantly bickered throughout the writing process. This spilled over into filming as they repeatedly stopped the shoot to scream at each other over how they wanted to block their scenes. They also fought with Ed Glaser (a much more experienced professional filmmaker than either of them) when he brought up the 180-degree rule, causing Ed to vow to never work with them again. Ed was later credited as the film's Director of Photography despite his protests.
• Brad Jones' films:
  • Jesus, Bro!: Note that Allison Pregler never shares a scene with neither Rob nor Doug Walker. Due to the real-life fallout between them owing to the unpleasant circumstances surrounding her leaving Channel Awesome, this was likely done to avoid this trope. Allison has mentioned on her Tumblr that while she had no love for the brothers, she was still able to work with them because they're adults. However, when a fan asked Allison on Twitter about working with Doug during filming, Allison replied that one time the only place to sit was next to her, so he stood.
  • Brad cast later them in his next film, DISCO (2017) — where they don't have scenes together. Lewis Lovhaug took the same precaution for the Atop the Fourth Wall movie.
• Escape the Night:
  • In-universe, Matt and Lele do not get along, in real life, even less so. Joey confirmed this in a commentary while he was rewatching the pilot, stating that Lele truly hated Matt and that most arguments in the show were real arguments between the duo.
  • By all accounts, Gabbie Hanna did not get along with pretty much anyone on set. Whose fault that is depends on whose accounts you believe, with Gabbie calling the environment unprofessional, while Joey and Daniel have both described her as "a nightmare" to work with, and another cast member described her as being the most difficult person they'd ever been on a set with. There were also allegations of her being rude to the filming crew.
• Nijisanji:
  • Zaion LanZa had a very antagonistic working relationship with management, which largely resulted in her only being part of the agency for three months before being suspended and then officially released. With regards to both, ANYCOLOR cited many instances of unprofessional behavior that made her difficult to work with, including repeatedly breaching contract over several copyright and content-related matters, privately exchanging confidential company info, lying about and manipulating discussions on matters between management and her colleagues, tacitly supporting anti-ANYCOLOR posts on social media, along with generally offensive and irresponsible acts that didn't improve with time. Following her termination, Zaion's actress fired back with her own series of allegations and rebuttals, pinning blame on ANYCOLOR's management as being poor and lacking in integrity, accusing them of fabricating large parts of their narrative against her while being draconian in her attempts to engage with them. The Livers who have spoken up on the matters (namely her former genmates of XSOLEIL) erred towards the side of condemning her behavior as having been a noticeable private problem even while she was still active, and those reporting to side with her on certain issues with management came out exhausted by how irreconcilable Zaion/ANYCOLOR's working relationship had become.
  • A year's worth of Executive Meddling surrounding Selen Tatsuki, as well as alleged bullying by staff and Selen's peers, came to a head on Christmas 2023. Selen's cover of "Last Cup of Coffee" was taken down by management mere hours after it was uploaded due to management having not cleared certain aspects of the music video; Selen would respond by giving fans the green light to reupload the video in defiance of ANYCOLOR rules, and was so shaken by the lost effort and money that she attempted suicide. Selen never streamed for Nijisanji again, hiring a lawyer to help her get out of her contract after management allegedly harassed her and her emergency contact following the suicide attempt. For ANYCOLOR's part, they accused Selen of being extremely difficult to work with and stated that she ignored an ultimatum sent nearly six months prior to the Christmas incident. In an infamous response video following Selen's termination, Elira Pendora, Vox Akuma, and Ike Eveland backed ANYCOLOR's side, while expressing concern that Selen had potentially planned to spread lies and expose personal details about themselves as well as other Livers.
• Critical Role basically refuses to talk about what happened behind the scenes with original cast member Orion Acaba, who left pretty early in campaign one. There are a lot of stories about his off-camera behavior that, again, the remaining cast will not comment on one way or another. That said, there was a great deal of hostility and frustration toward Orion that was uncomfortably obvious while the cameras were rolling, from Orion making an ill-advised sexual joke in response to Laura Bailey's roleplaying to an interminable stretch in his last episode where he kept trying to do a bunch of different things while preparing for an upcoming battle. This last issue caused the other cast members to yell at him live on stream.

In-Universe:

Anime & Manga

• In Skip Beat!, actors Ren Tsuruga (disguised as the actor Cain Heel) and Taira Murasame have been at each other's throats since the script reading for their film Tragic Marker. Ren's "Cain Heel" persona is aloof and disinterested (the director has asked him to keep his distance from the cast and crew, in order to make his performance as an undead serial killer terrifying and unexpected), while Taira is a hot-blooded ex-gang leader who thinks Cain isn't taking his work seriously.
  • They get into numerous verbal sparring matches that culminate in an incident where Ren nearly kills Taira^note Taira states (correctly) that he "stepped on a landmine", by accidentally stomping hard on one of Ren's biggest deeply-buried Berserk Button: what starts out as stage combat practice turns into an all-out brawl, during which Ren puts Taira in a choke-hold while suspended over an unsecured ledge on the film set. Taira is convinced he's about to die and pulls Ren off the ledge with him, but a last-second intervention from Kyoko convinces Ren to throw Taira into a safety net and use the momentum from the throw to land safely.
• The Two Sides of Seiyuu Radio stars two voice actresses who appear to get along while in character on their radio show, but can't stand each other in reality, at least at the start of the series.
• Yuri is My Job! stars a group of high school students who work at a salon, where they roleplay as students at the prestigious Liebe Girls' Academy, thus leading to this kind of drama at times.
  • While Mitsuki plays the kind senpai and "schwester" to Hime's character, in reality, she can't stand Hime. For the most part, the tension is manageable, until Hime learns that Mitsuki is a former friend of hers who betrayed her, and Mitsuki, who felt that Hime also wronged her, realizes that Hime wasn't just pretending to be ignorant of it. Their hostility gets so bad that Mai asks them if they no longer want to be "schwestern," and rumors spread about Mitsuki bullying Hime into becoming her schwester. Luckily, Hime defends Mitsuki in order to quash the rumors, and the two make some progress in reconciling.
  • This also happens between Mitsuki and Kanoko, who happen to be jealous of each other's closeness to Hime- Mitsuki was friends with Hime in elementary school, while Kanoko and Hime have been friends since middle school. Kanoko tries to get the schwester system abolished to break up Mitsuki and Hime, and when Mitsuki tells Kanoko about how she made a Love Confession to Hime, Kanoko slaps Mitsuki. Unlike with the initial hostility between Mitsuki and Hime, their friction does not spill over and cause trouble with the salon.
  • Not long after the salon's founding, the founding members- Mai, Sumika and Nene- were joined by a newcomer named Yoko. Sumika immediately (and rightly) became suspicious of Yoko, making passive-aggressive remarks toward her or avoiding her. While Yoko didn't openly respond in kind, this ended up straining Sumika and Nene's friendship.

Films — Live-Action

• Singin' in the Rain, Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont can't stand each other and take advantage of the silent movie format for Volleying Insults. Of course, this changes once the movie is forcibly changed into a talkie.
• In Found Footage 3D, Derek and Amy, the writers and stars of the Film Within a Film Spectre of Death 3D, have seen their relationship go on the rocks by the time the film enters production — not a good thing when they're playing a Happily Married couple in the film.
• A gag in La La Land shows Mia and Sebastian walking past a film set where a kissing scene is being shot. As soon as the director calls cut, the actors playing the lovers start screaming at each other.
• Satirized in Shadow of the Vampire, which is set in an Alternate History where Max Schreck, the lead actor in Nosferatu, was actually a real vampire, not an actor. This predictably leads to a metric ton of on-set tension, as Schreck regularly mistreats or feeds on crew members, gets into arguments with the director, and causes production snafus with his demands and limitations (like refusing to ride a boat to a shooting location because he Cannot Cross Running Water). It all eventually climaxes in the crew and Schreck trying to murder each other, starting a fight that ends with everybody except the director dead.
• In This is Spın̈al Tap, the animosity between the band and their manager becomes more evident the worse things get, until finally Nigel leaves the band following the Seattle show at the Air Force base.
• America's Sweethearts is about how two actors' on-screen chemistry translated into off-screen romance and how the deterioration of that relationship resulted in on-set tension and conflict.
• In A Diva's Christmas Carol, when Ebony Scrooge is filming a Christmas video in Paris, she yells at the crew for dumping too much fake snow on her, causing her to gag, not having her water or cell phone once off the set and bringing her toasted bread for breakfast instead of her requested French Toast, the latter of which drove a male crewmember to tears. Her large backup band also have little nice to say about her, even admitting in her Behind the Music episode that she was a nightmare to work for, she fired numerous people for trivial reasons, she allegedly killed her best friend via a car accident with a cut brake line to further her career and that she smelled really bad.

Live-Action TV

• The Brady Bunch: The third-season episode "Juliet Is the Sun," where Marcia – having been cast as one of the lead titular roles in a middle school play, "Romeo and Juliet," begins to act like a complete spoiled diva and is not getting along with others. Her behavior escalates at practice one afternoon, where she fights with the director about having to follow directions and the script and especially about her co-star, Harold, whom she considers awkward, having a "squeaky" voice and is otherwise unfit for the role. (This, despite her teachers trying – but losing – their patience with her and reminding her this is not her next big break for Hollywood.) Eventually her teachers have enough and Carol – who unknown to Marcia came to practice (to deliver advertising materials for the play program) and witnessed the aforementioned exchanges – tells her she and her teachers have decided to dismiss her from the play.
• Feud: Bette and Joan covers the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the filming of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. It, however, amps up some of Bette's behavior while toning down Joan's.
• In Game of Thrones, Bianca, a member of Izembaro's Theatre Troupe, is secretly plotting to have Lady Crane killed so she could take the lead actress spot. Izembaro is also very much a Prima Donna Director.
• In-universe (sort of), invoked, and Played for Laughs in the Supernatural episode "The French Mistake", in which Sam and Dean are sent to our real world to become the actors playing them on the show (It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context). Pretty much every person they interact with who works on the show with them will mutter "at least they're talking to each other."
• The Curse of Steptoe covers the production of Steptoe and Son, specifically the conflict between leading actors Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett, although its factual accuracy was disputed by Corbett's family and the original writers.
• Jane the Virgin: Despite being on very good terms with each other pre-Time Skip, three years later Rogelio and Darci's relationship has soured badly while filming their reality show, to the point that they start snarling at each other as soon as the cameras stop rolling and nearly every offscreen conversation is a fight. Ironically, said reality show is about how they are in love with each other.
  Narrator: So yeah, that true love schtick? All for the cameras.
  • Another example of this on the show also regards Rogelio. This time with his co-star Fabian, and they were initially close as Fabian was a fan of Rogelio‘s. They fell out because Fabian was dating Jane and Jane broke up with him. Their feud becomes difficult to handle, so the producers came up with the solution to kill off either Rogelio or Fabian’s character.
• In iCarly episode, "iCarly Saves TV". The web series is set to have its own TV Show but the executive who greenlit the show, start adding "additions" to it. One of which is a bratty actress called Amber Tate who takes over Sam's role after she walks off and frequently acts rude to Carly and Freddie. Her dog barfing all over Freddie and blaming him for what happened is enough for Freddie to call it quits from the production.
• Played for Laughs on Rupauls Drag Race when the queens were tasked with a Sex and the City "Making Of" challenge, parodying the hostility between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall.

Literature

• The last part of Judith Krantz's Scruples involves the making of a film directed by the heroine's new husband. He casts two unknowns as the leads, not only because they give excellent auditions, but also partly because he's on a very strict budget and shooting schedule due to Executive Meddling; they won't ask for huge salaries, and they'll recognize the big opportunity they've been given and won't cause any drama on the set. The two leads fall in love very soon after shooting begins... and have a vicious breakup halfway through filming, and won't even leave their trailer if the other's on set. Meaning the pivotal lovemaking scene has to be not only re-blocked but shot twice, each lead acting with a stand-in. To the entire crew and remaining cast's disgust, the two leads passionately make up during the wrap party!
• In the commentary for The Fountain of Fair Fortune, one of the stories of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Dumbledore mentions the unfortunate casting choices in a theatrical version of the aforementioned story - the students playing "Amata" and "Sir Luckless" had been dating until "one hour before the curtain rose," at which point "Sir Luckless" dumped "Amata" for the girl who was playing "Asha." Then "Amata" and "Asha" ended up dueling on stage, contributing to the disastrous production that prompted a ban on School Play in general inside Hogwarts.

Video Games

• In Hitman (2016), during elusive target #7, Gary Busey and Gary Cole had a tense relationship while both starred in a film project. This was mainly caused by Busey's antics, so the film's producer hired 47 to kill him.
• In LEGO Studios Backlot, Johnny Thunder does not seem to get along well with other cast members of the Troubled Production.

Web Videos

• In The Nostalgia Critic's review of Batman Forever, the Critic and the Geek mock Tommy Lee Jones for saying "I do not sanction your buffoonery." to Jim Carrey when he acts just as over-the-top as Carrey does.

Western Animation

• Rocko's Modern Life: In the episode "Wacky Delly," while working on the eponymous cartoon show, Heffer and Filburt spent most of their time fighting. During a storyboarding session, the two mostly try to shoot down the other's ideas, which also irritates Rocko immensely. It reaches a head just as the first episode is finished, and Heffer and Filburt begin deliberately destroying scenes that feature each other's characters. Of course, creator/producer Rachel Bighead doesn't mind because she's actively trying to sabotage the show anyway.
• The Simpsons:
  • The Krusty the Clown Show is an incredibly toxic environment, and Krusty himself is responsible for 99% of it, being an utter jerk of a prima donna that belittles, harasses (sexually and otherwise), insults and even threatens the lives of his coworkers on a constant basis behind and in front of the cameras. Depending on the Writer and whatever the Rule of Funny says is best at the moment said coworkers are either utterly innocent and defenseless or they also hate Krusty but are a lot more professional about it and thus just stick to the occasional snarky line or deadpan look. Ultimately, the show is such a nightmare to work on that it drove one of the actors, Sideshow Bob, into a life of crime.
  • Kent Brockman, the prima donna news anchor (and trope namer for Kent Brockman News) and the rest of KBBL Broadcasting do not get along and this has been a major or minor detail in the plot throughout the series. In "Marge on the Lam" it is showcased that the "We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties" station card is a drawing of an insane Kent wearing a straightjacket. In "Bart Gets Famous" Kent absolutely refuses to do his work as an anchor because Bart took his pastry and says so on live television (prompting the rest of the crew to kick him out of the set and have Bumblebee Man act as a replacement anchor). In "You Kent Always Say What You Want", an executive overreacts to Kent putting Splenda in his coffee and fires him for alleged drug use (although considering that thanks to a foul word he said on live TV — that he apologized for immediately — and Ned Flanders' Moral Guardians crusade the station got in hot water with the FCC, it's all but stated that she's just making up a reason that will make Kent look bad as payback). And then there's the Running Gag of Kent and fellow anchor Arnie Pye tossing angry barbs at each other mid-broadcast (with Pye being definitely the less professional one).

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