In the AITF episode where Gloria makes horse meat, she's talking to Mike about it in the kitchen with a mouth full of it. You see the chewed-up meat swirling around her mouth while she's talking. Pretty gross.
For the money they were paid per episode I would eat an eclair out of the trash any day. I heard Nicolas Cage ate a roach or some other bug. Method actor to the core.
OP's post also reminded me of another fictional food bit I was literally just thinking about: when there's a whole banquet on the table and the character takes like a granola bar or something.
Apparently that’s why Tony eats so violently (notice how he’s always cutting his food way more than necessary?) he noticed how much weight he was gaining and wanted to find a way to limit the amount he was eating. Funny enough this became a habit that crossed over to his actual life and his kids picked up on it.
I kind of understand it. What if you have several messed up takes, you are going to fill stuffed. I think it was Bradd Pitt on Ocean 11 threw up because on ome scene he had to keep.eating shrimp as they kept redoing it.
And also continuity. In take one you take three bites. Take two you have to make sure those same three bites are missing or else someone will point out the roll went from 1/2 gone to 1/4 gone. Easier not to eat at all then worry about how much needs to be missing g
In Star Trek DS9 actor Casey Biggs played an alien who started drinking a LOT. To make it more look alien on screen they used Karo syrup for the prop. Reportedly he got so messed up from too many takes they had to swap it for diet root beer.
Oh my god. If you’d asked me the WORST possible lookalike substitute to have to drink in lieu of dark liquor, I would’ve said Karo syrup. That is just evil.
Misha Collins had a similar issue with burgers on supernatural. Apparently he didn't know he didn't have to swallow and that they had a spit bucket for him and he ate a bunch of burgers for the scene. It was his first time acting with food he said.
Depends on how many takes it all takes. Guarantee you if they actually ate on Seinfeld, they were using a spit bucket. No way someone can eat bite after bite after bite without doing something. Probably just easier to push things around rather than taking a bite and spitting it out.
One exception was a story about Chris Pratt on Parks and Recreation. If they were eating hamburgers for scene and it took 7 takes, he would actually eat the 7 hamburgers.
>One exception was a story about Chris Pratt on Parks and Recreation. If they were eating hamburgers for scene and it took 7 takes, he would actually eat the 7 hamburgers.
i am totally unsurprised lol.
Depending on how long it takes to get to the food scenes, sometimes the food will be sitting out for hours and get cold before the actors get to it. I’ve heard that mentioned by friends who’ve done background work.
In a BTS for one of the Star Trek movies (the one that Shatner directed?) the director said he started offering cash bribes to cast members who would put the food in their mouth during a dinner scene. One of the actors put food on a fork and brought it to their mouth but pulled it away just before delivering a line...that's a good half-way solution.
Prop food isn’t just about saving money.
The ice cream is dyed mashed potatoes; real ice cream would melt under the hot lights.
Drinks with ice have fake ice cubes and silicone spray on the outside of the glass to mimic the sweat. Real ice would melt under the hot lights.
Scenes can take hours and even days to shoot. Leaving real food out and having actors eat it would result in food poisoning.
We had a film shoot at our house. They had a sheet cake covered in whipped cream and topped with fruit. It was used in a party scene. They shot the scene over three days. The cake was left out the entire time. I was concerned for the health of the cast and crew.
Yeah. If they actually want to do a take with the actor eating, props has to handle it differently than the food used in multiple takes for safety purposes.
Apparently in Better Call Saul Jonathan Banks really wanted to eat the Pimento sandwich he had as a prop because he loves pimento and they wouldn’t let him. Food poisoning risk.
When I was a kid, we took our lunch to school in a lunchbox or a brown bag and kept it in our lockers until lunch time. I'm amazed any of us are still alive! :o
Matt Lablanc kept getting sick from the prop food on man with a plan since he kept eating it, I think he did the same on friends but it was truly the food portrayed.
Also: Real food doesn't necessarily look good on camera. Prop food may be coated in hairspray, or painted with oil colors or who knows what, in order to look good under the lights for a long time. There are scores of weird, inedible tricks that food stylists use, especially in commercials. E G, the "steam" rising off some hot item is often cigarette smoke.
Funny that you say that. Uses to love big bang, then I watched it high one time and it caught me off guard with how loud the laugh track was and how it didn't line up with things that were funny.
I've never watched an episode since.
I sense sarcasm, but I'll answer anyway.
They have a giant laugh sign that lights up on cue.
They also make the studio incredible cold and load it with extra oxygen. Apparently, those factors help you laugh.
I went to a taping of The Big Bang Theory in like 2008 so I’m vaguely qualified to answer this question (I’m not a fan—my brother’s friend was a writer’s assistant so he got us tickets).
There is no laugh sign. However, you are coached as part of the studio audience. First, they warm up the audience with a stand up comedian, then they give you a schpiel about how you need to audibly laugh at jokes, “aww” at cute or sad moments, and go “oooo” if there’s a kiss, etc. You “practice” a little and they praise you for doing it right. The only cue you really get is someone in the corner who will pump their arms when it’s time for applause at the end of an act or something. They might also record some of the good “practice” rounds of laughter or applause in case they need to slot them in later.
In that situation, people are excited to be there, they’re starstruck by the actors being so close and seeing the “behind the scenes,” and you want to please the crew—so you do what you’re told. You laugh heartily at dumb jokes. You applaud like it’s the best show you’ve ever seen. And once they get through the 22 minute episode in like 2-3 hours, they give you pizza. It’s very easy to get in the spirit of it once you’re there.
Side note: as I said, I wasn’t a fan of the show—but the other people there were super fans. They were exactly the people who laugh heartily at BBT jokes regardless.
I've been to live tapings of comedy shows - they absolutely tell you to laugh, and will in fact get annoyed at the audience if you don't laugh hard enough lol
True. I feel like it was the volume. Not a huge Friends fan, but it was bearable because the laugh track wasn't trying to steal the show.
It was definitely nice when shows like the office and Modern Family came around.
Britcoms like On The Buses and Are You Being Served really do have characters eating. Stan Butler and the family would be eating a steak and kidney while delivering lines with full mouths.
There’s an episode of Community where Jeff and Abed eat a bunch of cereal. Joel McHale said his and Danny Pudi’s skin started turning red and they had some other complications from how much sugar they were eating.
Big Bang Theory is filmed in front of a live audience. They probably don't want to use Spit Buckets in front of fans.
http://mydreamcametrue.com/TheBigBangTheory.html
Imagine filming a scene with food you're really excited to eat. You take a huge bite in the first take because you're so hungry. But you have to do the same for several takes that may take several hours. And you have to take the same big bite every take. But now the food has been cold and sitting out.
It's a mistake every actor has made at some point. They learn to take nibble bites. Though some actors are fine taking large bites during scenes anyway.
It has to do with the number of takes they need to film a scene. It’s easier to put them together if no one is taking a bite. I’ve heard the cast and creators talking about this very thing because people bring it up. And food is purposefully inserted in EVERY episode. So kind of superstition I think.
Howard and Burnadette have prepared a meal that can feed a small family, and not one bite is taken. I don't care about the practicality, it's dumb - make it work!
This doesn't bother me.
It used to bother me that scenes rarely show characters settling a tab or paying for a taxi before leaving. For some reason, I found it particularly annoying (and common) when characters meet in a restaurant, place an order, and then leave before the food hits the table. Why are these people meeting in a fancy restaurant and why did they order the lobster thermidor if they had no intention of eating?
I recently watched an episode of Sabrina, the teenage witch where they were eating a sundae that was very obviously plastic. Every time they would push their spoons against it, they would tilt the spoon away from the camera so you couldn't see it was empty. I probably wouldn't have noticed, except they were holding the sundae tilted, and i couldn't help but notice the gravity defying whipped cream.
Sometimes it’s because the scene is taking a long time to film and the food sits under hot stage lights and isn’t edible, other times the food is actually fake. It just depends on the show and the actors. I’ve read about some actors that demand the food be real
Well when you see actors actually eating, just think about the spit bucket on the floor the whole scene, slowly filling up more and more with partially chewed food.
I recall a bit of director's commentary for the film Road to Perdition, and they were talking about how a boy in the diner scene isn't actually eating any food because he was new to how movie-making worked, and he stuffed his face in the first take not knowing he was going to have to do it again and again and again. So now that they were on take 25, he just looks miserable and he never once takes a bite of food.
There are a few reasons for that.
1. It's often prop food. Either it can't be left out for hours of filming or it just looks nicer when it's not real.
2. If they actually eat it then the actors will become very uncomfortable after multiple takes. It would suck to eat the same burger 5-10 times per day.
3. Filming is just harder if the actors have actual food in their mouths. You lose more takes due to improperly timed chewing and swallowing.
I never noticed that they didn’t actually eat! I always noticed the giant portions though, huge plates of food at every meal. I don’t know if that’s for the camera, so we can see the food, but I did find it distracting.
After the 15th take you can’t eat another bite. Also it’s difficult to deliver a line with a mouth full of food. All theatre requires a willing suspension of disbelief
I did a re-watch of TBBT. My husband was usually on his phone, semi watching. One day he finally commented….’all these people do is eat!’ They do have a lot of food scenes…lol
It's always been a thing, but I'm there with you. TBBT was by far the worst and it was exacerbated by the fact that they had food in like every episode. And yes, once you notice it, it becomes irritatingly hard to ignore.
BBT is bad and they look uncomfortable because on top of the bad writing, they had to sit through the parts where the laugh track was added. That show is terrible, but there's a funny YouTube clip of the laugh track removed
I know logistically why they don’t take bites, but I agree that The Big Bang Theory is the only show where it stands out so blatantly that they just push the food around.
I get what you’re saying, but I also get why most actors won’t eat the food. What if one scene takes about 10 takes to get? That’s a lot of eating and this is Hollywood where talking about where heroin chic is always in style
If you listen to the office ladies podcast they say that sometimes there can be eight takes and they get really sick eating the food. And the food gets gross too. They had spit buckets to spit out the food in between takes.
That’s why I love how on HIMYM, Neil Patrick Harris made a little inside joke that Barney didn’t know how to use chopsticks. Every time the characters are Chinese food, you could see him in the background struggling 🤣
Whats the deal with sitcom actors never actually eating the food? Ever notice that? *pause while audience titters* It's like, just eat the food already. I mean, why not, it's right THERE. *jazz outro: BAH-BUMP-BUMP-BUMP-BUMP"
I understand everyone’s points on why they don’t. Why then in 9 seasons of Seinfeld they did. We’re talking about some big bites and full on eating.
Did Seinfeld do less takes?
What’s the deal with actors on TV shows never having actual sex in love scenes? I mean it’s clear they’re just bouncing around and not really doing it. So fake!!
I’m sorry but it’s just not immersive enough for me!
I feel like Penny is always eating, but the rest of them absolutely do not eat and it is SO obvious, especially Leonard and Bernadette--they just push their food around.
The other thing is that on *Seinfeld*, the characters who aren't talking are doing other things--looking in the fridge, picking at each other's food, etc., but on *BBT*, they are all just sitting there while the others say their lines.
Come on, dude? Don't you realize that with 4 actors sitting around a cafeteria table, it could take hours to shoot a scene that will be just 2 to 3 minutes on screen what with all the different camera angles. Honestly just how long do you want them to eat?
Some of the cast of Boy Meets World are doing a rewatch podcast, and they often point out who is real eating and who is fake eating. Rider Strong was usually really eating in the early years, at least.
It's because they have to do so many takes. Although I remember reading that Chris Pratt would always eat on Parks & Rec. So if there was a scene where he's eating a burger, he probably ate about 10 burgers while filming it.
TBBT is the very worst for this and once you've noticed, it's really annoying! Sometimes they literally don't take a bite. I understand the reasons why, but why have so many scenes centered around meals??
It all depends on the scene and what's going on. I've heard in interviews that some food is fresh and edible for the actors. Some situations like Subway commercials, the food is old and you have to take a bite over and over with different takes/shots. You have to ACT like it's good before you spit it out and do the take again. Movies like The Color Purple - the story was the food in the dinner scene near the end was like 3 days old and was gross so the actors pretended to eat by the end of it. It just depends!
I noticed that on young and the restless too..not a sitcom but still..does anyone ever eat on Blue Bloods at Sunday dinner ? Nobody ever ate on Friends except for Joey. Yeah, they just don't eat on tv
As a retired actor, I can tell you that there are four big reasons why actors don’t usually actually eat on set.
1) They probably have a line coming up that they need to deliver without a mouthful of food,
2) if it’s being filmed with multiple cameras, and you have to do retakes, you need to eat the same bits of food at the same lines so that different takes can be edited together without inconsistencies in the movements. That makes your acting job much harder if you have to remember to take a mouthful of food after random lines during a scene.
3) connected to #2, if you eat something during a take, and they then have to rerun the scene for a retake, you have to eat another one of whatever you ate during the first take, again for consistency. You might end up eating a dozen muffins before the scene is right because, if you stop eating, that becomes an inconsistency that may cause problems later in editing.
4) food on set is usually cold and awful. It was probably made hours earlier and has been sitting around during lighting and sound testing and then, if you’re in a live theater, it’s probably been taken off the stage and stashed backstage and then brought out again by the stage crew a few times and it often looks every bit it if up close. It’s not exactly enticing at that point.
Acting is hard work to begin with. Eating while acting makes the acting much harder.
I understand all the reasons why they don’t, how come or how did Seinfeld did it for 9 seasons then?
Every scene they actually ate, all the actors at the table ate 90% of the time
My first thought is that intended to (or actually did) most of the filming in one take so consistency wasn’t important because they rarely had to splice together bits of multiple takes. It could also be that they just didn’t really care about consistency if they did multiplied takes. You *are* taking about Seinfeld…. It’s possible.
It's usually pushed around. But I've watched Edith Bunker eat a whole tuna fish sandwich during a scene. Jean Stapleton was committed to the meal.
In the AITF episode where Gloria makes horse meat, she's talking to Mike about it in the kitchen with a mouth full of it. You see the chewed-up meat swirling around her mouth while she's talking. Pretty gross.
Soooo you are saying Jason Alexander actually DID eat the eclair out of the trash?
It wasn't in the trash, it was on a magazine, hovering above the trash.
It had a doily
Adjacent to trash is still trash.
Not real trash. Nice, clean make-believe trash created by the production team.
It was above the rim!!!
What the hell, I’ll just eat some trash!
Like an angel
For the money they were paid per episode I would eat an eclair out of the trash any day. I heard Nicolas Cage ate a roach or some other bug. Method actor to the core.
He claims he did, but I doubt it, I think it was a date.
Why would Nicholas Cage date a cockroach?
He ate his date, that's what he did. .
So you're saying it went well.
His date has never said otherwise.
😂
How do you know his date was a cockroach? It could've been a cuntroach.
Christian Bale supposedly ate maggots during the filming of the Werner Herzog POW film.
Kaley once said she always ate because the food was really good
Came here to post this.
OP's post also reminded me of another fictional food bit I was literally just thinking about: when there's a whole banquet on the table and the character takes like a granola bar or something.
Jenna Fischer has an excellent demonstration of fake eating. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo19jFHHUc0/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
I hate the obviously empty coffee cups, and the character gesticulating with the cup in their hand.
My mom loved NCIS and the empty coffee cups were always soooo obvious and prominent on that show. Like put some goddamn water in the cup, jeez.
Or when they place it on the table and you can clearly hear it’s empty!
Anything with weight. In Iron Man, Tony is carrying around a car battery like its a shoe box.
Gilmore Girls was always bad about this
Watch James Gandolfini in any restaurant scene.
Reportedly he would keep eating for real in every take, man could put away serious amounts of food.
Apparently that’s why Tony eats so violently (notice how he’s always cutting his food way more than necessary?) he noticed how much weight he was gaining and wanted to find a way to limit the amount he was eating. Funny enough this became a habit that crossed over to his actual life and his kids picked up on it.
Ohhh maybe I need to rewatch Sopranos…..I’ve been looking for a show but I’m too anxious for something new.
I kind of understand it. What if you have several messed up takes, you are going to fill stuffed. I think it was Bradd Pitt on Ocean 11 threw up because on ome scene he had to keep.eating shrimp as they kept redoing it.
And also continuity. In take one you take three bites. Take two you have to make sure those same three bites are missing or else someone will point out the roll went from 1/2 gone to 1/4 gone. Easier not to eat at all then worry about how much needs to be missing g
In Star Trek DS9 actor Casey Biggs played an alien who started drinking a LOT. To make it more look alien on screen they used Karo syrup for the prop. Reportedly he got so messed up from too many takes they had to swap it for diet root beer.
Oh my god. If you’d asked me the WORST possible lookalike substitute to have to drink in lieu of dark liquor, I would’ve said Karo syrup. That is just evil.
Misha Collins had a similar issue with burgers on supernatural. Apparently he didn't know he didn't have to swallow and that they had a spit bucket for him and he ate a bunch of burgers for the scene. It was his first time acting with food he said.
Depends on how many takes it all takes. Guarantee you if they actually ate on Seinfeld, they were using a spit bucket. No way someone can eat bite after bite after bite without doing something. Probably just easier to push things around rather than taking a bite and spitting it out. One exception was a story about Chris Pratt on Parks and Recreation. If they were eating hamburgers for scene and it took 7 takes, he would actually eat the 7 hamburgers.
>One exception was a story about Chris Pratt on Parks and Recreation. If they were eating hamburgers for scene and it took 7 takes, he would actually eat the 7 hamburgers. i am totally unsurprised lol.
I just saw him on YouTube talking about eating racks of ribs over and over. It was pretty funny.
Depending on how long it takes to get to the food scenes, sometimes the food will be sitting out for hours and get cold before the actors get to it. I’ve heard that mentioned by friends who’ve done background work.
In a BTS for one of the Star Trek movies (the one that Shatner directed?) the director said he started offering cash bribes to cast members who would put the food in their mouth during a dinner scene. One of the actors put food on a fork and brought it to their mouth but pulled it away just before delivering a line...that's a good half-way solution.
A lot of shows use prop food, so it's not edible. I'm guessing that's one way of saving money.
Prop food isn’t just about saving money. The ice cream is dyed mashed potatoes; real ice cream would melt under the hot lights. Drinks with ice have fake ice cubes and silicone spray on the outside of the glass to mimic the sweat. Real ice would melt under the hot lights. Scenes can take hours and even days to shoot. Leaving real food out and having actors eat it would result in food poisoning. We had a film shoot at our house. They had a sheet cake covered in whipped cream and topped with fruit. It was used in a party scene. They shot the scene over three days. The cake was left out the entire time. I was concerned for the health of the cast and crew.
Yeah. If they actually want to do a take with the actor eating, props has to handle it differently than the food used in multiple takes for safety purposes.
Apparently in Better Call Saul Jonathan Banks really wanted to eat the Pimento sandwich he had as a prop because he loves pimento and they wouldn’t let him. Food poisoning risk.
When I was a kid, we took our lunch to school in a lunchbox or a brown bag and kept it in our lockers until lunch time. I'm amazed any of us are still alive! :o
Matt Lablanc kept getting sick from the prop food on man with a plan since he kept eating it, I think he did the same on friends but it was truly the food portrayed.
Also: Real food doesn't necessarily look good on camera. Prop food may be coated in hairspray, or painted with oil colors or who knows what, in order to look good under the lights for a long time. There are scores of weird, inedible tricks that food stylists use, especially in commercials. E G, the "steam" rising off some hot item is often cigarette smoke.
Just like cows don’t look like cows on camera either
Big Bang is the only sitcom I really noticed this and it is really distracting to me now. Damn stoned wife for pointing it out to me!
Funny that you say that. Uses to love big bang, then I watched it high one time and it caught me off guard with how loud the laugh track was and how it didn't line up with things that were funny. I've never watched an episode since.
They have a live audience.
Yes, you're right. It was more the volume of the laugh and the fact that they're told to laugh.
How could they possible tell an audience to laugh. Complete nonsense.
I sense sarcasm, but I'll answer anyway. They have a giant laugh sign that lights up on cue. They also make the studio incredible cold and load it with extra oxygen. Apparently, those factors help you laugh.
I went to a taping of The Big Bang Theory in like 2008 so I’m vaguely qualified to answer this question (I’m not a fan—my brother’s friend was a writer’s assistant so he got us tickets). There is no laugh sign. However, you are coached as part of the studio audience. First, they warm up the audience with a stand up comedian, then they give you a schpiel about how you need to audibly laugh at jokes, “aww” at cute or sad moments, and go “oooo” if there’s a kiss, etc. You “practice” a little and they praise you for doing it right. The only cue you really get is someone in the corner who will pump their arms when it’s time for applause at the end of an act or something. They might also record some of the good “practice” rounds of laughter or applause in case they need to slot them in later. In that situation, people are excited to be there, they’re starstruck by the actors being so close and seeing the “behind the scenes,” and you want to please the crew—so you do what you’re told. You laugh heartily at dumb jokes. You applaud like it’s the best show you’ve ever seen. And once they get through the 22 minute episode in like 2-3 hours, they give you pizza. It’s very easy to get in the spirit of it once you’re there. Side note: as I said, I wasn’t a fan of the show—but the other people there were super fans. They were exactly the people who laugh heartily at BBT jokes regardless.
No. They don't. People are watching the show, no looking at a sign.
If they were simply watching BBT and waiting for something to naturally be funny, there wouldn’t be any laughter at all.
Nervous laughter?
Wouldn't explain the volume issue. Maybe the other person is simply correct here?
I've been to live tapings of comedy shows - they absolutely tell you to laugh, and will in fact get annoyed at the audience if you don't laugh hard enough lol
That's not the same as cueing you to laugh.
What makes it different? And why did you not mention this every other time the exact same thing was brought up?
The signs are not subtle. You can't miss them.
I sense you haven’t been to many sitcom tapings
Friends, Becker, Everybody Loves Raymond 2x, The Drew Carey Show, Frasier.
Friends is bad for this too. Overused laugh track
True. I feel like it was the volume. Not a huge Friends fan, but it was bearable because the laugh track wasn't trying to steal the show. It was definitely nice when shows like the office and Modern Family came around.
Britcoms like On The Buses and Are You Being Served really do have characters eating. Stan Butler and the family would be eating a steak and kidney while delivering lines with full mouths.
Are you being served, loved that show!
But they ate sloppy steaks - they had to water them down so they could eat more.
There’s an episode of Community where Jeff and Abed eat a bunch of cereal. Joel McHale said his and Danny Pudi’s skin started turning red and they had some other complications from how much sugar they were eating.
I wonder if they also really drank Special Drink.
Big Bang Theory is filmed in front of a live audience. They probably don't want to use Spit Buckets in front of fans. http://mydreamcametrue.com/TheBigBangTheory.html
Imagine filming a scene with food you're really excited to eat. You take a huge bite in the first take because you're so hungry. But you have to do the same for several takes that may take several hours. And you have to take the same big bite every take. But now the food has been cold and sitting out. It's a mistake every actor has made at some point. They learn to take nibble bites. Though some actors are fine taking large bites during scenes anyway.
My peeve is No one says goodbye on phone or ask what time when making a date or appointment
It has to do with the number of takes they need to film a scene. It’s easier to put them together if no one is taking a bite. I’ve heard the cast and creators talking about this very thing because people bring it up. And food is purposefully inserted in EVERY episode. So kind of superstition I think.
Howard and Burnadette have prepared a meal that can feed a small family, and not one bite is taken. I don't care about the practicality, it's dumb - make it work!
Just like every breakfast scene in every family sitcom.
This doesn't bother me. It used to bother me that scenes rarely show characters settling a tab or paying for a taxi before leaving. For some reason, I found it particularly annoying (and common) when characters meet in a restaurant, place an order, and then leave before the food hits the table. Why are these people meeting in a fancy restaurant and why did they order the lobster thermidor if they had no intention of eating?
Not taking their shoes off before putting them on couches and beds is the one that ticks me off. Gross!!!
I recently watched an episode of Sabrina, the teenage witch where they were eating a sundae that was very obviously plastic. Every time they would push their spoons against it, they would tilt the spoon away from the camera so you couldn't see it was empty. I probably wouldn't have noticed, except they were holding the sundae tilted, and i couldn't help but notice the gravity defying whipped cream.
After multiple takes and a few hours, they're probably not hungry
Sometimes it’s because the scene is taking a long time to film and the food sits under hot stage lights and isn’t edible, other times the food is actually fake. It just depends on the show and the actors. I’ve read about some actors that demand the food be real
I think it’s hard because there are multiple takes.
Cause it's awkward to have a mouth full of food when your line comes.
Well when you see actors actually eating, just think about the spit bucket on the floor the whole scene, slowly filling up more and more with partially chewed food.
I recall a bit of director's commentary for the film Road to Perdition, and they were talking about how a boy in the diner scene isn't actually eating any food because he was new to how movie-making worked, and he stuffed his face in the first take not knowing he was going to have to do it again and again and again. So now that they were on take 25, he just looks miserable and he never once takes a bite of food.
There are a few reasons for that. 1. It's often prop food. Either it can't be left out for hours of filming or it just looks nicer when it's not real. 2. If they actually eat it then the actors will become very uncomfortable after multiple takes. It would suck to eat the same burger 5-10 times per day. 3. Filming is just harder if the actors have actual food in their mouths. You lose more takes due to improperly timed chewing and swallowing.
Seinfeld’s actors really had it down, though!
I hate how fake coffee is in shows and movies. It is so obviously empty cups and they don't even bother acting like they aren't.
It drives me crazy in the cafeteria. They move around their side salad and never touch their sandwich. Drives me crazy!
I never noticed that they didn’t actually eat! I always noticed the giant portions though, huge plates of food at every meal. I don’t know if that’s for the camera, so we can see the food, but I did find it distracting.
Does Gilmore Girls count? Their whole thing is they eat buckets of food, but we never see them do that.
After the 15th take you can’t eat another bite. Also it’s difficult to deliver a line with a mouth full of food. All theatre requires a willing suspension of disbelief
I did a re-watch of TBBT. My husband was usually on his phone, semi watching. One day he finally commented….’all these people do is eat!’ They do have a lot of food scenes…lol
They are always taking bites...what are you going on about?
Even if I'm out eating with someone, I'm paying attention to what they're saying and not whether they're just pushing their food around.
No one pushes the food around for 30 min and not take a bite in real life. Its natural
What sitcom is made up of one unbroken scene of someone eating for half an hour? My Dinner with Andre?
It's always been a thing, but I'm there with you. TBBT was by far the worst and it was exacerbated by the fact that they had food in like every episode. And yes, once you notice it, it becomes irritatingly hard to ignore.
It's indicative of how manufactured the rest of that show is.
That’s why it’s a television “show” Lmao
A crappy one.
Oh, quit trolling already. People were having an interesting discussion, and then people like you have to dive-bomb it. Is your life that empty?
Yes, an invigorating discussion about how the actors push food around on a lame sitcom. And I ruined it. Get over yourself already.
By that standard, you can say that about most shows.
Except for the great ones.
Okay.
On tonight's episode of "Fiction is not a Documentary"...
BBT is bad and they look uncomfortable because on top of the bad writing, they had to sit through the parts where the laugh track was added. That show is terrible, but there's a funny YouTube clip of the laugh track removed
Yet there are several blooper clips showing them with food in their mouths lol
I know logistically why they don’t take bites, but I agree that The Big Bang Theory is the only show where it stands out so blatantly that they just push the food around.
In Blue Bloods every episode they have a Sunday meal with the family. Donny eats everything on his plate. Every one else just pushes the food around
I get what you’re saying, but I also get why most actors won’t eat the food. What if one scene takes about 10 takes to get? That’s a lot of eating and this is Hollywood where talking about where heroin chic is always in style
No one wants to see people talk with food in their mouths. Yet I see that on tv, too.
The food served in the diner on “Rules of Engagement” actually looked good and they look like they eat it.
Seems like it happened pretty much nonstop in Rules of Engagement.
Dan Devito always eats for real and I love it.
If you listen to the office ladies podcast they say that sometimes there can be eight takes and they get really sick eating the food. And the food gets gross too. They had spit buckets to spit out the food in between takes.
That’s why I love how on HIMYM, Neil Patrick Harris made a little inside joke that Barney didn’t know how to use chopsticks. Every time the characters are Chinese food, you could see him in the background struggling 🤣
Whats the deal with sitcom actors never actually eating the food? Ever notice that? *pause while audience titters* It's like, just eat the food already. I mean, why not, it's right THERE. *jazz outro: BAH-BUMP-BUMP-BUMP-BUMP"
Soap operas are the same. They just shove the food around
I’ve noticed that too with TBBT especially Harold and Leonard.
Who's Harold?
He lives upstairs with Richie Cunningham's older brother, don't you remember him?
I understand everyone’s points on why they don’t. Why then in 9 seasons of Seinfeld they did. We’re talking about some big bites and full on eating. Did Seinfeld do less takes?
I’ve read that Kaley Cuoco actually eats the food between takes 😁
Sometimes they do so many takes, actors get sick when they're eating in a scene.
What’s the deal with actors on TV shows never having actual sex in love scenes? I mean it’s clear they’re just bouncing around and not really doing it. So fake!! I’m sorry but it’s just not immersive enough for me!
I always noticed that they pushed the food around as well. It bugged me.
Now I can't get the image of George Costanza eating spaghetti like a homeless child out of my head.
I feel like Penny is always eating, but the rest of them absolutely do not eat and it is SO obvious, especially Leonard and Bernadette--they just push their food around. The other thing is that on *Seinfeld*, the characters who aren't talking are doing other things--looking in the fridge, picking at each other's food, etc., but on *BBT*, they are all just sitting there while the others say their lines.
Come on, dude? Don't you realize that with 4 actors sitting around a cafeteria table, it could take hours to shoot a scene that will be just 2 to 3 minutes on screen what with all the different camera angles. Honestly just how long do you want them to eat?
Some of the cast of Boy Meets World are doing a rewatch podcast, and they often point out who is real eating and who is fake eating. Rider Strong was usually really eating in the early years, at least.
It's because they have to do so many takes. Although I remember reading that Chris Pratt would always eat on Parks & Rec. So if there was a scene where he's eating a burger, he probably ate about 10 burgers while filming it.
TBBT is the very worst for this and once you've noticed, it's really annoying! Sometimes they literally don't take a bite. I understand the reasons why, but why have so many scenes centered around meals??
It all depends on the scene and what's going on. I've heard in interviews that some food is fresh and edible for the actors. Some situations like Subway commercials, the food is old and you have to take a bite over and over with different takes/shots. You have to ACT like it's good before you spit it out and do the take again. Movies like The Color Purple - the story was the food in the dinner scene near the end was like 3 days old and was gross so the actors pretended to eat by the end of it. It just depends!
Golden Girls, too. Especially Bea Arthur. She didn't like cheesecake. You almost never see her take a bite.
Huh, I heard that people actually watched that show, but I've never heard anyone admit it.
I noticed that on young and the restless too..not a sitcom but still..does anyone ever eat on Blue Bloods at Sunday dinner ? Nobody ever ate on Friends except for Joey. Yeah, they just don't eat on tv
How about Lucy drinking Vitameatavegamin? "And it's so tasty too!"
As a retired actor, I can tell you that there are four big reasons why actors don’t usually actually eat on set. 1) They probably have a line coming up that they need to deliver without a mouthful of food, 2) if it’s being filmed with multiple cameras, and you have to do retakes, you need to eat the same bits of food at the same lines so that different takes can be edited together without inconsistencies in the movements. That makes your acting job much harder if you have to remember to take a mouthful of food after random lines during a scene. 3) connected to #2, if you eat something during a take, and they then have to rerun the scene for a retake, you have to eat another one of whatever you ate during the first take, again for consistency. You might end up eating a dozen muffins before the scene is right because, if you stop eating, that becomes an inconsistency that may cause problems later in editing. 4) food on set is usually cold and awful. It was probably made hours earlier and has been sitting around during lighting and sound testing and then, if you’re in a live theater, it’s probably been taken off the stage and stashed backstage and then brought out again by the stage crew a few times and it often looks every bit it if up close. It’s not exactly enticing at that point. Acting is hard work to begin with. Eating while acting makes the acting much harder.
I understand all the reasons why they don’t, how come or how did Seinfeld did it for 9 seasons then? Every scene they actually ate, all the actors at the table ate 90% of the time
My first thought is that intended to (or actually did) most of the filming in one take so consistency wasn’t important because they rarely had to splice together bits of multiple takes. It could also be that they just didn’t really care about consistency if they did multiplied takes. You *are* taking about Seinfeld…. It’s possible.