The A/V Club interviewed Curtis Armstrong (Booger in Revenge of the Nerds) about his life and career in film and one interesting anecdote he gave was about working with Gary Busey.
While shooting some movie where Gary plays a software tycoon who dies and gets reincarnated as a dog, Curtis says Busey, who died after an accident but came back, got into a fist fight over what Heaven should look like because he’d been there and the set looked nothing like it.
AVC: Yeah, sorry for dragging this one up. But this was a movie where you appeared alongside Gary Busey, who plays a software tycoon who dies and is reincarnated as a dog. Busey’s such a weirdo force-of-nature that we have to ask about working with him
CA: It was just what you’d imagine. That’s about the best way to put it. We were shooting this movie—which is a horrible movie—and he was supposed to come back from the dead. And he of course, Gary Busey, supposedly had done this—he’d been in an accident and died and came back. He showed up on a set made to look like Heaven, and he looked around and said, “I can’t play this scene.” They were three days behind at this point. But Busey said, “It’s nothing like this. I’ve been to Heaven and it doesn’t look like this. That sofa’s all wrong. That mirror is ridiculous. They don’t even have mirrors!” It was ridiculous. He was completely nuts about the design of Heaven.
But then on top of it, one of the guys playing an angel, had also died and come back. And this guy got into an argument with Busey about the way Heaven looked! The two of them wound up coming to blows and they had to send everybody home. So there you go. That’s what we were working with.
They obviously had cameras there. Why weren’t they filming this? This sounds amazing. If I was standing there listening to this, the only noise you’d hear from me is a squeal of joy because I’d be witnessing the greatest thing to ever happen. Can you imagine fighting with Busey over this? None of his arguments would make any sense but he’d say them with such conviction. “There should be two pigs on that sofa holding a remote control and it should be leather, not fabric! Clearly, you’ve never been to Heaven.”
Someone please..help this freak