13 Hilarious Moments From “Dont Look Up” That You Probably Didnt Realize Were Improvised

Honestly, is there anything Meryl Streep can’t do???

1.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, and Rob Morgan spent two days improvising the first Oval Office scene. The first cut was a whopping 16 minutes long but was, of course, shortened. Some gems like this still made the cut, though:

2.

In fact, Meryl improvised a different phone call in that scene for every single take. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at 10 of them:

Meryl Streep improvised a different presidential phone call for ✨ every single take ✨ of the Oval Office scene in DON’T LOOK UP.

Here are 10 of them. https://t.co/inTvpVpBcJ

03:00 PM – 12 Jan 2022


Twitter: @netflixfilm

3.

Jason Orlean’s fist bump and comment to Kate in the Oval Office was all Jonah:

4.

In fact, a lot of Jason’s insults in the movie were improvised by Jonah, according to Jennifer Lawrence:


Netflix

She told Vanity Fair, “It was really, really hard filming with Jonah and just not ruining take after take just laughing. We one time dedicated an entire day to him just improving insults at me. It was amazing.”

5.

Leo also improvised the part where Randall started screaming at the camera on a children’s TV show:


Netflix

Director Adam McKay explained that he’d only scripted two lines, and the rest was 100% Leo.

6.

Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett improvised quite a bit in their talk show scenes, including lines like this:

7.

This peculiar line Yule’s friend asked Kate was also totally unscripted:

8.

This line about potatoes was alllll Timothée Chalamet:

9.

Ariana Grande improvised some lines from her song “Just Look Up,” like these:


Netflix

Adam revealed that it’s one of his favorite moments in the film, saying, “The second I heard it, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s going in the movie.'”

10.

The entirety of Jason Orlean’s “prayer to stuff” was improvised by Jonah:

11.

Leo came up with Randall’s very last, heart-wrenching line before the comet hits Earth:


Netflix

Adam revealed that the idea made him and script supervisor Cate Hardman immediately tear up.

12.

Meryl improvised the line about how President Orlean would die, which became the inspiration for the mid-credit scene:


Netflix

Adam told Variety that after they shot that scene, he got the idea to end the movie with Orlean getting eaten by a Brontaroc. They shot two mid-credit scenes — one where they are fighting over who is going to build houses on the new planet, and the one that made it in the movie. 

13.

And finally, Jonah improvised part of this post-credits scene too:

Don’t forget to watch this star-studded cast in Don’t Look Up, streaming on Netflix.