Page 4 - Celebrity Facts

Christopher Reeve trained with Darth Vader to prepare for his role as Superman!

Christopher Reeve was a virtual unknown when he was cast as Superman. In fact, he wasn’t the producer’s first choice at all. Robert Redford, James Caan and Clint Eastwood all turned down the role before Reeve got the part.

When Reeve signed, he was 6’4” and 188 lbs. To prepare for the role, the producer hired David Prowse, who played the body (but not the voice) of Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies.

Reeve went through a rigid high-protein high-intensity workout regimen and he gained 33 lbs of muscle. He went from benching a personal record 40lbs to 320 lbs! He got conditioned enough to do all his own stunt work.

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Robert Downey Jr. was accidentally knocked out while filming a fight scene for Sherlock Holmes!

Robert Maillet is known as the Acadian Giant and Kurrgan. The Canadian native is known for his height, to say the least, towering at seven feet tall. He was a professional wrestler turned actor. In his films, he is often portrayed as even taller than that, though. He was the giant in the film 300 and Dredger in Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock uses a cattle prod on him. While filming the fight scene with Robert Downey Jr. For Sherlock Holmes, Maillet accidentally knocked Downey Jr. Out. Downey Jr. Came to and was fine. There were no hard feelings. Back home, Maillet is called Grand Robert. He's married with four children in New Brunswick, Canada.

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If you saw Iron Man 3, Marvel trolled you!

By now everyone knows that Marvel movies always have a scene after the credits right? Last year's The Avengers had a post-credits scene that sent shawarma sales skyrocketing. This year, they decided to have a little fun with it.

The end credits for Iron Man 3 ran a little longer than usual. The credits ran for a full 10 minutes, longer than average. If you think that's because they had a lot of people to list, you're not 100% true. They also padded them with some fake names like Gwyneth Waltrow.

Another interesting thing about Iron Man 3 is that the movie has an extra scene in the Chinese market. In the scene, which is right at the beginning of the movie, Tony Stark is shown blowing off the same doctor that would later save him in the first Iron Man movie.

Want to know more about Iron Man 3? Check out the source (there might be spoilers)

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Heath Ledger kept a diary as the Joker where he wrote things that the Joker would find funny, like AIDS and blind babies.

Writer Grant Morrison read a diary that Heath Ledger had written while he prepared to play the Joker on The Dark Knight. Turns out that Morrison's writings had a lot of influence on the way that Ledger portrayed the Joker.

Morrison had written a list of things that the Joker found funny on a comic called The Clown at Midnight. It was prose, as opposed to the typical comic book format, so it wasn't that widely read. Except for Heath Ledger.

Morrison commented on how the diary had a list of things that would make the Joker laugh: Blind babies, AIDS, seriously injured doctors, geniuses with brain damage, landmines, brunch and sombreros. That list was almost word for word what Morrison had put down on page in The Clown at Midnight.

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Krusty the clown was actually supposed to be Homer in disguise!

The Simpsons is more than just a mindless sitcom. Through their run, they have managed to weave in a number of deeper subjects. Perhaps one of the more interesting subjects is one that they didn't have the time to work in.

A recurring theme in The Simpsons is that Bart has a strange relationship with Krusty the Clown. Bart's character is almost a pure anarchist, except for his strange idolization of Krusty the clown. He idolizes him despite all of Krusty's very obvious problem.

Show creator Matt Groening said that they wanted to take that one step further. Krusty was originally Homer in disguise. Both characters look pretty similar. The idea was that Homer couldn't get any respect from his son, except when he dressed as a clown.

They thought it was too complicated of a storyline, so they dropped it, and Krusty became a character on his own. The thematic thread got picked up later, though, when Homer joins Krusts' clown college in the sixth season.

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