This week, I asked people on Twitter to tell me about the things that characters do in movies and TV shows that drive them nuts.

I got thousands of responses and most of them fell into the same general categories. But what was interesting is how often those things that annoy us most have clear reasons for being done that way. Movie and TV shoots are meticulously researched, highly organized productions. There are very few details that go into finished footage that aren’t done intentionally. Plus, it’s the entire job of script supervisors and script coordinators to ensure continuity from scene to scene and over a period of time. If you see a character doing something in a scene that annoys you, it was almost always a deliberate choice on the part of the production.

Here are the Hollywood reasons behind some of the most common idiosyncrasies we see in movies and TV shows.

1. When An Actor Is Holding A Clearly Empty Coffee Cup

Yeah, nope. Lorelei and Rory aren’t holding empty cups in ‘Gilmore Girls.’ Nope, not at all.

Oh, man, does the internet have a lot of opinions when it comes to how we depict eating and drinking on screen. But the number one gripe is the obviously empty cup. There’s just something about a person gesturing wildly with a cup that obviously has nothing in it that takes us right out of whatever we’re watching. It’s one of those small moments that signals to us that what we’re watching isn’t real, and for a second, we’re tossed back into reality instead of being absorbed in what we’re watching.

Why it’s done that way: To safeguard against accidents. Even if it’s just water, if it were to spill on an actor, that means shooting would have to be paused while they cleaned the actor up or dried them off. If it were to spill onto the set, they’d also have to stop to dry off props or clean up the puddle for safety reasons. Shooting with empty cups ensures this won’t happen. Still, cottage market for weighted prop cups? Anyone?

2. Never Eating Elaborate Breakfasts/Never Eating Meals In Restaurants

Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett with food they never eat and water glasses that have never been filled in ‘Ocean’s Eight’ (Courtesy: Warner Bros.)

Tell me if you’ve ever seen this exact scene before:

1. Someone calling from downstairs: “[Character], get down here! You’re going to be late!”
2. Kid runs downstairs, sees elaborate breakfast spread with bacon, pancakes, eggs, etc.
3. Kid grabs a banana or piece of toast on way out the door: “Sorry, gotta run – bye, mom!”

Yes? So has the internet. And it drives us crazy. Closely related to that is when someone orders something at a restaurant and either pushes it around on their plate or takes two bites before getting interrupted and leaving.

Why it’s done that way: Because most scenes require multiple takes…and takes…and sometimes…takes. Some scenes can be shot in just one or two takes, but others require dozens, even hundreds. A single scene might require an entire day simply because of the adjustments and setup and multiple takes needed. For example, the cafeteria scene in Spider-Man where Peter Parker catches all the food on the tray took a whopping 156 takes over a 16-hour day to get right.

That means taking a bite of food and eating is a no-no, because if they take a bite in one take, they have to keep eating in the next for continuity’s sake. Can you imagine how sick an actor would get having to eat that much? Prop food is often used, but sometimes, it’s not and that’s when things can go sideways. In a famous anecdote, Jonah Hill once explained how he made Leonardo DiCaprio puke after switching the scene up so vegetarian-turned-vegan Leo would be forced to eat a piece of sushi in a certain scene. 100 takes later and DiCaprio was puking into a trash can. Not great.

3. Characters Ordering ‘A Beer’ And Not Specifying

Go ahead. Try going up to a bar, any bar, anywhere in real life and say “Gimme a beer” to the bartender and see how that works out for you. At best, they’ll hide their irritation and ask, “What kind? I have 36 on tap alone.” At worst, they’ll think you’re being rude. In general, people in movies are often kind of crappy to bartenders. But it’s always most baffling that in the world of movies and TV, bartenders always just seem to magically know what kind of beer their customer wants.

Why it’s done that way: A character ordering “a beer” instead of, say, “a Yuengling” is almost always because of branding – if a character orders a specific brand, the bartender then has to give it to them. So they either couldn’t acquire the rights to that beer brand or they didn’t want to pay for it. For a moment so insignificant to the overall plot, it’s not worth spending the money.

4. No One Ever Says ‘Goodbye’ When Hanging Up The Phone

Moving out of the food and beverage zone, another big area of irritation was general communication. People in movies simply don’t interact and communicate with each other the way people do in real life. Did you ever notice that characters virtually never say goodbye when hanging up a phone? Or that they’ll just…leave the room to end a conversation? Or that two characters will agree to meet up later but then never actually say a time or location? Where is this world in which people don’t have to abide by common courtesy? Fictional worlds, that’s where.

Why it’s done this way: It’s a time-saver. Seriously. That’s almost always it. Movies have to get down to certain run times for theatrical releases, which means even a few minutes can make a big difference. While streaming series have a little more flexibility, network TV shows must adhere to strict timing because of commercials. And scripts of all kinds have to abide by certain page counts. That means anything that’s not necessary gets cut out.

Plus, there’s a weird sort of degradation that happens when you move from real life to movies. I bet you never notice how long it takes you to hang up when you’re on the phone with someone. How many false goodbyes and awkward pauses you go through until you both actually hang up. You may not notice it in real life, but it’s certainly noticeable when characters do it on screen. Movies and TV shows simply cut out the awkwardness to streamline the scene and move on to the next.

Speaking of phones…

5. Seeming To Forget Phones & Computers Exist

We bet he didn’t say goodbye before hanging up.

Why is it that so many movies and TV shows set in our world in the current era seem to exist in an alternate universe where cell phones and laptops don’t exist? Or they do, but you just…never see them? They’re treated like afterthoughts rather than the vital pieces of equipment most of us use every single day in reality.

Why it’s done this way: Part of this is because it’s hard to create sustained drama in a world in which any information you need can be found in thirty seconds by doing a quick Google search or texting a friend. It personally annoys me when movies and TV shows do this, but I understand that the main conflict of the story would be resolved too quickly if technology like that existed in the story.

But another reason for it is laptops and especially cell phones date a movie faster than anything else. More than pop culture references, more than the clothes the characters wear. If you want a movie to feel timeless or hold up years later with a rewatch, one of the fastest ways to take someone out of a movie they’re watching is when they notice a phone a character is holding that’s jarringly out-of-date. Just look at the phone that Tom Cruise is holding as Jerry Maguire up above. How weird is it to see a blocky cell phone like that? And one with an antenna, no less! It automatically makes the watcher wonder what else in the movie is outdated. Better to just remove that distraction completely.

6. Characters Withholding Crucial Bits Of Information

110% certainty this guy will not tell a single soul he’s been bitten by a zombie until it’s too late.

So often, especially in TV shows, characters withhold sharing information that, to us as the audience, it seems obvious to share. Like the grave medical diagnosis they just received. Or the fact they’re injured with a wound that will clearly slow the group down or become a problem in the future. Or when one character gets mad at another for a simple misunderstanding that is easily cleared up. Characters always seem to have communication breakdowns when it matters most. This is basically the entire backbone upon which the CW sits.

Why it’s done this way: “I don’t understand why they don’t just explain themselves,” you cry. “It would all be resolved in two minutes!” Yes, exactly, they’d explain and…then it would be resolved in two minutes. It’s similar to the first reason for the point above, that the conflict and drama would be undermined if characters were upfront about crucial information. So, instead, they withhold info. It’s a little bit of a cheat, but it’s all in the service of amping up the tension and creating drama.

7. No One Ever Needs To Reload A Gun. Ever.

Hollywood guns are magical. True story.

Remember how weird it was the first time you watched John Wick do his thing and he…reloaded his gun? Or when Deadpool counted his bullets? They were apparently using real-life guns and not one of those magical Hollywood guns with endless bullets and it was so rare to see that it almost took you out of the moment. But in the land of make-believe, no one ever seems to need to reload. It’s such a ubiquitous trait in action scenes that it’s become a running gag in Archer that he always wins in a shootout because he’s the only one who ever counts his bullets and knows how many he has left.

Why it’s done this way: Same reason they cut out parts of phone conversations or information exchanges: For timing and flow. It’s the same reason you’ll rarely see characters get tired or pause for a stitch in their side. Action sequences are meant to immerse you in the tension and the fast-paced events unfolding in front of you. A round of bullets flying spikes your adrenaline but a lull in the action where a character stops to reload his bullets releases that tension so carefully built up.  In fact, talk to actors well-trained in military tactics or those who come from a military background. They’ll likely tell you they did reload when shooting the scene but it was later cut out during edits.

8. And No One Ever Seems To Get Bloody

Another realistic error in action movies and TV shows is that actors seem to be able to take endless punches or wounds without actually shedding blood, breaking bones, or having their faces rearranged. Some are more egregious with this than others. I’m a longtime Supernatural fan, for example, but after 15 years of taking endless punches to the face, Sam and Dean have no right to still be as pretty or as intact as they are. In fact, it became such an obvious issue that in Season 15, the writers explained it away by revealing that the Winchesters are near-mythical figures who have been protected by God all along.

Why it’s done this way: This might actually have more reasons why it’s not done than any other on this list. For starters, movies can rarely show blood if they want to keep it below an R rating. That’s the obvious one. But blood and special effects makeup are so much work beyond that. Don’t believe me? Here are just a few of the reasons productions steer clear of blood and wounds:

• Getting SFX makeup to look right often requires calling in a specialist SFX makeup artist – and that means they’re more expensive
• If you make a point of giving someone a noticeable bruise or wound, you then have to make sure that you change that bruise or wound throughout the shoot to give it the appearance of it fading as it would in real life
• Blood is surprisingly hard to fake well and it takes an enormous amount of time to get right and you have to keep reapplying it as it dries out
• It ruins costumes and that means either a trip to the dry cleaner or laundry or a bigger costume budget
• It gets in an actor’s hair and all over their face, meaning they need to be cleaned off and touched up every single time there is a need to start shooting a new scene

So…what about when you do see blood in a scene? For example, when someone is shot in the head and their corpse is lying in a puddle of blood? A few ways, as it turns out. There are prop companies that specialize in making resin blood pools that have the same viscous and shiny look as wet blood. You lay the fake blood pool down on the ground, the actor lays down on top of it, and – presto! You have a dead body without any of the fuss of clean-up. Blood and wounds are often added digitally by VFX companies, especially for network TV shows. But even then it’s hard to get right, and blood soaking through fabric is notoriously difficult to nail in VFX. So difficult, in fact, that one of my friends, a VFX artist who specializes in that exact kind of work, once went to the hospital for an injury and made the nurse stop to allow her to take a picture of the fabric pad she was bleeding onto to use later as a reference. That’s dedication.

9. Never Watching The Road When Driving

Eyes on the road, James Marsden! EYES on the ROAD! (Courtesy: Paramount)

This was actually the catalyst for me posting my original tweet. I was watching a movie where two characters were in a car and the driver kept taking his eyes off the road to have an extended conversation with the passenger. It stresses me out every single time this happens and it happens all the time.

It’s such a hazard; you just know they’re in danger of running into something.

Why it’s done this way: Because if they’re having a conversation, they’re not actually driving. This is for a few reasons. One, it’s a safety issue. No one wants their star actor to be distracted by trying to act in a scene and then get into an accident. The number one priority for a shoot is keeping their cast and crew safe. So no driving without one’s full attention on the road. Two, you can’t predict traffic so it’s incredibly hard to get the shots you want if you’re weaving in and out of cars. When you see actors “driving” during a scene that’s anything but them driving in a transition, it’s not real.

The driving conversation is shot in one of two ways. Sometimes, the interior of the car is built and then put in front of a green screen. The actors do their thing in front of the green screen and then the external landscape outside the car windows is added later. But this can often look fake. More often, the car is put on a sort of low sled and pulled along on a rig. This ensures a smoothness of filming and that the external scenery and changing lighting are realistic, especially if the production can ensure that the cars around it are also part of the crew driving at carefully coordinated speeds and patterns.

There are countless other moments like this in movies and TV that seem like goofs but are actually done in the spirit of safety, budget, narrative flow, or continuity. And now you know just a bit more about the secret sauce that goes into Hollywood productions.