Mad Max: The Road Warrior's Wild Child Must Have Been Made To Act Terrified

Many actors can "turn it on and off" as they work. They can play with their co-star, then once "action" is called, they can yell at them like the other person murdered their family. It's much easier for adults to flip that switch than it is for kids, but during "The Road Warrior" Emil Minty needed to do it for a big scene and couldn't. Speaking to the It Came From blog, actor Vernon Wells, who plays the red Mohawk Wez in the film, recalled how he and the child actor got along off-camera, which complicated their big confrontation scene:

"George [Miller] used to say to me, 'Don't become good friends.' And I couldn't help myself. Every time I walked on set and saw him, I was like, "That's not a snack, that's EMIL!" And he hated it. .. When we got to the scene at the end of the movie where I come over the hood and grab his hand he's supposed to freak out Well the first time we did that he just looked me and I laughed. He was 10 years old - for him it was a game, like a game of hide and seek. And George came up to me and said, 'I told you so.' "

In order for Minty to give the right reaction, Miller and Wells went to the makeup department and dipped a small piece of foam in syrup which he hid in his hand, so when he grabbed the as a kid, it looked like blood went everywhere. You could probably use this trick on an adult and get a similar creepy reaction. Wells "felt so bad" doing it, but sometimes all it takes is exploiting the weird artifice of filmmaking to get the result you need.