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Before Maya Hawke made Robin Buckley iconic, Bridgerton's Nicola Coughlan actually auditioned for the part and came close to landing it. She's since said publicly that Hawke absolutely nailed it in a way she doesn't think she could have, which is a pretty gracious thing to admit about a role you nearly got.
Digging through old build files shows Infinity Ward experimented with night-time versions of several multiplayer maps, including Ambush, Strike, District and Overgrown. They were basically identical to the day versions bar the lighting, and none of them made the final cut.
Right at the start of Little Resistance there are three puddles along the beach. Stand in each one for about ten seconds, working your way along, and staring at a palm tree by the last one triggers a fake 'earthquake' followed by Japanese statues rising up holding a Ray Gun for you to grab. Great way to farm points if you're playing co-op.
Halo 3's multiplayer wasn't just a launch-week phenomenon. By March 2009, more than one billion online matches had been played across the game, and it had gone on to sell over 14.5 million copies in total, making it one of the best-selling titles of its console generation.
The Distant Lands special "BMO" leans hard into classic sci-fi and fantasy references. When BMO and Olive travel through the Drift, the colorful lights are a direct homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and if you look closely at BMO's insides, there's a tiny medal and diploma tucked next to their heart, mirroring the gifts the Wizard gives to the Tin Man and Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.
Long before he was cast as Jesse, Aaron Paul actually auditioned for a part on Malcolm in the Middle — the sitcom starring Bryan Cranston. He didn't land that role, but years later ended up working alongside Cranston anyway on a much darker show.
The game's E3 reveal trailer shows Altaïr crossbow-shooting a bodyguard before assassinating a Templar mid-hanging. None of that scene actually plays out in the finished game, and crossbows weren't even a usable weapon yet, Ubisoft has said the swap was deliberate so the trailer wouldn't spoil real story beats.
By the time season 7 rolled around, the production was so paranoid about paparazzi and set leaks that Kit Harington ended up shooting entirely fake scenes just to throw people off. He told Jimmy Kimmel he filmed three of these decoy scenes, each one taking around five hours, purely for the moments the crew knew they were being watched from a distance.
Al Mualim is loosely based on Rashid ad-Din Sinan, the real leader of the Hashashin sect in the late 12th century. Ubisoft couldn't use his actual name in the game for legal reasons, so the connection stayed unofficial for years.
That bit where Gandalf smacks his head on the beam in Bilbo's hobbit-hole wasn't scripted at all - Ian McKellen actually clonked his forehead for real mid-take. Peter Jackson thought he sold the pain so well he just left it in the final cut.
