Actor Rachel McAdams is used to starring in movies about Time Travel. Apart from the romcom About Time, she starred in the much more somber Time Travel flick The Time Traveler’s Wife.
But she once revealed filming the movie had to be held up because of her co-stars’ hair.
Before the HBO Max adaptation starring Theo James, the famous book The Time Traveler’s Wife had a film adaptation that came out in 2009. The movie starred Eric Bana as Henry, who was unable to control his mysterious ability to time travel. McAdams starred as Bana’s love interest at the time.
Since the film would feature Bana’s character throughout various stages of his life, Bana had to play younger and older versions of himself. The actor used a traditional Hollywood make-up method to try to look younger than he was for the role’s sake.
“When I had the wig on, I knew I was playing the younger Henry and when I had my own hair, I was playing the older Henry. So that wig was a great physical tool for me,” he once said in an interview with Emanuel Levy.
Bana was already an admirer of McAdams’ before working with her. The actor had kept track of the Mean Girls star’s film career. But when he actually collaborated with her, he found her to be a consummate professional.
“She came into rehearsals extremely well-prepared; she knew the material very well and had very clear ideas, but never at the expense of other actors. She’s so natural and was always right there in the moment, which made my job so much easier,” Bana said.
McAdams had similar praise for Bana. But she shared that the actor’s hair caused a bit of a problem on set. Bana was set to play the villain Nero in the 2009 film Star Trek. But his Nero makeup clashed with his schedule for The Time Traveler’s Wife.
“We wound up doing a reshoot, and Eric was the holdup. He had to shave his head for a different role, for Star Trek, I think. So we were waiting on Eric’s hair,” McAdams once told Sco Fi Wire (via Female First).
Bana clarified, however, that they didn’t have to wait too long for his hair to regrow for the film.
“I was bald and I said, ‘Does it matter if we wait until my hair grows so that I don’t have to wear a wig.’ They said, ‘Yeah, that’s not a problem.’ We didn’t have to wait that long. Luckily, this stuff grows really fast. We flew back to Toronto and did what we had to do and that was it,” he once told Collider.
When Bana’s character time travels in, he doesn’t take his clothes with him. This meant that there were quite a few scenes that Bana had to be nude for. But the scenes in question didn’t bother the former Hulk, who approached those moments professionally.
“I tried to do exactly as I was told so we could get it done as quickly as possible and move on with the rest of the day, that’s what I did. And I made sure I didn’t turn around, and that someone had clothing very close by,” Bana said in a 2009 interview with SiLive.
He also chose not to work out for the film, as he wasn’t too worried about looking a certain way while performing nude.
“I can honestly say I did nothing for this film. You will notice there are no abs whatsoever present. I don’t do abs. I believe abs are for people with no friends and without a life,” he joked.