this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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From Wikipedia with the original source being The Python Years. Michael Palin (2006)
This is from Michael Palins diary and doesn't make any reference to withholding pay from actors and just says the scene had some improvisation in it.
This quote is taken verbatim from an answer to a similar question on Movie's stack exchange, it tells a similar story of the scene being improvised and again makes no reference to the withholding payment for laughing
All evidence points to the fact the scene was improvised to an extent by Michael Palin and the extras Chris Langham, Andrew MacLachlan and Bernard McKenna. I could not find a single piece of evidence that even slightly points to the guards being threaten to not be paid.
what are you talking about? who said anything about payments?
An oft repeated bit of trivia is that the actors were told they wouldn’t be paid if they laughed, this comment seeks to disprove that, but fails to mention it in the first place
Could be if the extras were not originally billed as speaking parts, the threat was too not upgrade them to the pay grade for speaking parts.
I know in SAG-AFTRA productions there's a limit to how many words you can speak on camera before you have to get a SAG card, that usually comes with an upgrade in pay and benefits.