Viewers may have been grossed out by a very gory scene in Leave The World Behind – but spare a thought for leading lady Julia Roberts who was left pleading with bosses to wrap filming as she couldn’t handle the stomach-churching moment.
The Netflix movie, based on Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel of the same name, follows the Sanford family – mom Amanda (Julia Roberts), dad Clay (Ethan Hawke), and teenage kids Rose and Archie (Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans) – as they swap Brooklyn for a last-minute vacation at a plush rental house on Long Island.
But bizarre events start taking place, from an oil tanker running aground on the beach to malfunctioning cell phones, and a national emergency alert on TV.
One particularly harrowing scene sees Archie losing his teeth before he then starts physically pulling them from his bloody gums – something that nearly proved too much for Julia, 56.
Julia Roberts pleaded for filming to wrap because she couldn’t handle another take of the stomach-churching moment in Netflix hit Leave The World Behind
During one particularly harrowing scene in the Sam Esmail-directed flick Archie, played by Charlie Evans, physically pulls out the teeth from his bloody gums
The realistic scene was the work of Gary Archer, the creator of SPFX teeth, who said his prosthetic work was so effective that Julia, and many of the cast and crew were unable to handle the ‘disgusting’ visuals.
Recalling the scene, Gary – who created Mike Myers’s distinctive teeth for the Austin Powers trilogy – told DailyMail.com: ‘I had to be on set that day, because the breakaway teeth are held in by wax, so I had to keep resetting it for each take.
‘Poor Julia Roberts, who has got a queasy stomach for dental gore, was sitting there as we’re doing take after take after take and she was hating it.’
The dental prosthetics expert, who famously worked on both the Interview With The Vampire movie and TV series, continued: ‘She’s like, “Can we be done? This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.” I’m like, “I guess a career in the dental field is not for you, Julia.”
‘I was over the moon for the fact that my work was having such an effect on her.’
Gary continued: ‘I love when somebody turns around and says what I’ve created is stomach churning or that they were awful to look at.
‘Even on set when they’re filming Leave The World Behind with the camera people and all the crew, to see them all going “That is just disgusting,” made me think “Job done!”‘
Gary, who is known as The Godfather of FX teeth, moved from London to the US in 1976 with his father, where they ended up working as together as technicians in a dental lab.
The realistic scene was the work of legendary dental technician, Gary Archer – who is known for creating the distinctive teeth for Mike Myers in the Austin Powers trilogy
He revealed to DailyMail.com that his prosthetic work was so effective that Julia, and many of the cast and crew were unable to handle the ‘disgusting’ visuals
The Netflix movie, based on Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel of the same name, follows two families trying to make sense of bizarre events amid a blackout in New York City
He started creating prosthetic teeth for movies in the mid-1990s after special effects makeup legend Greg Cannom commissioned them to make a set of teeth that would fall out of somebody’s mouth and into a glass of water.
The scene featured in the beloved 1993 comedy, Mrs Doubtfire, and their work launched Gary’s place in the upper echelons of the special effects world.
Gary is known as The Godfather of FX teeth
Since then, the dental technician has created the smiles for some of the most memorable characters – including Austin Powers’s gnarly grin and Blade’s incredible fangs.
In more recent work, Gary created the deliberately ‘silly’ veneers Ben Affleck wore to transform into his character, Rex Stone, in wife Jennifer Lopez’s new movie, This Is Me… Now.
‘We got a request to make Ben as ridiculously unrecognizable as possible with porcelain white veneers,’ he said.
‘We made these ridiculously silly, square, big, whitest white veneers… I was reading an online article that said, “These teeth are the things of nightmares”, which I thought was brilliant.’
Meanwhile, Gary’s work is also being highlighted in the FX series, Feud: Capote vs The Swans as he helped actress Naomi Watts replicate the smile of her character, 1970s socialite Babe Paley.
The eight-episode series tells the tale of acclaimed writer Truman Capote, who ruins his friendships with a group of socialites – known as the ‘Swans – in New York City, by writing a false account of their scandalous lives in his novel Answered Prayers.
Gary started creating prosthetic teeth for movies in the mid-1990s and now has dental molds for nearly everyone in Hollywood thanks to his pioneering career
Gary said: ‘In real life, Naomi has very distinctive teeth. She’s got two front teeth, very prominent centrals, and everything else is kicked back a little bit so the task was to make a set of teeth that wouldn’t look like a fake set, but would resemble the lovely dentures that Babe Paley wore… and we were able to do that.
‘I’ve been watching the series and I surprised myself. When I saw them on the screen and I thought, “God, did I actually do that because they looked so incredibly natural.” They didn’t look like it’s fake teeth.’
However, not all stars enjoy wearing replications of their character’s teeth as Gary revealed that Naomi’s co-star Diane Lane rejected the dentures he made for her character, Nancy ‘Slim’ Keith.
‘Nancy actually had pretty messed up teeth, it had a crossover at the front,’ Gary explained. ‘So I went ahead and I copied them but I don’t think Diane Lane particularly liked the look of them – even though they were historically correct.’
He added: ‘I think she felt that they took away from her character, it didn’t make her look as elegant as perhaps Diane wanted them. The producers gave the okay for her not to wear them.’