Russell Crowe just revealed that he and Michael Shannon wanted to film Nuremberg's epic courtroom scene in just one day.
The Gladiator star plays Adolf Hitler's henchman Hermann Goring in the historical drama opposite Shannon who portrays Robert H. Jackson, the US lawyer who helped prosecute Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.
Both actors wanted the four-day-long shoot to be shortened and consolidated into one, which became one of the "most challenging" experiences Russell has ever had onset.
He told Deadline: "It was probably one of the most challenging, thrilling and resonate days I’ve ever spent on a film set.”
"Michael and I knew each other from (Superman film) Man of Steel... The courtroom scene was originally scheduled to be shot over 4 days. Michael and I discussed how there didn’t seem to be natural stopping points. The scene was written like a duel, a fight sequence with concepts and philosophies as weapons...” he mentioned.
The Unhinged star continued, "We had a chat with Jamie (director James Vanderbilt) and put forward the suggestion that we could play it as written. Seventeen pages in a day...”
"No responsible production company is going to sensibly plan to hit a page count like that in a single day,” Russell mentioned, adding, "As excited as he was about what we were suggesting, I think Jamie made some joking remark about how 17 pages in a day 'isn’t humanly possible.'”
"I deadpanned in return: 'Michael and I are from (Superman's home planet) Krypto,'" he hilariously stated.
Michael went on to reveal the pair didn't even rehearse before going for their first take, revealing” "The thing about a scene like that is that we’re both trying to catch each other off guard.”
"So, there’s an advantage to not knowing entirely what the other person’s going to do beforehand... So, I think it’s a perfect opportunity to not rehearse and to let people kind of live and die in the moment,” Michael Shannon concluded.