The late Stanley Kubrick was one of Hollywood's most legendary filmmakers, but even he was amazed at one of fellow director Ridley Scott's scenes from Scott's own classic Alien.
The moment the baby alien chestburster was introduced to audiences was one of cinema's most unforgettable moments. “I remember Stanley Kubrick called me up saying, ‘How’d you do that?’" Scott said.
In the film, the alien creature unexpectedly burst through the chest of John Hurt's character Kane in the crew dining area of the Nostromo cargo ship. Scott pulled off the scene by positioning Hurt so only his face was visible through a hole in the table, with a fake torso constructed so the alien appeared to violently emerge from Hurt's chest.
"[Kubrick] said, ‘I’ve run it through slowly, I can’t see the cut.’" Scott said. "And I just said that much. He said, ‘OK, I got it. I got it, it worked.’”
Scott was also able to evoke a genuine reaction of shock and surprise from the other actors by keeping the scene's outcome a secret. “I kept it very much from the actors and I kept the actual little creature, whatever that would be, from the actors. I never wanted them to see it,” Scott said. “Remember there was no digital effects in those days at all. I’m going to somehow bring that creature out of his chest.”
Without the benefit of any CGI technology, Scott also had to be sure to capture the scene in a single take, with multiple cameras. "Once I blew blood all over that set, there was no cleaning it up," Scott said.
Via LATimes