Pacino had to break up a real Foxx & LL Cool J fight on Any Given Sunday

Mama said knock you out! Well, LL Cool J did at least. Look, we all know egos and testosterone can be a dangerous combination in the locker room, but when you put that locker room on the set of a major motion picture, things can really blow up. And that’s just what happened during the making of Any Given Sunday, when Jamie Foxx – then trying to make a name as a dramatic actor – and LL Cool J – the hero of Deep Blue Sea – got into it, with the rapper trying to get ahead of an entirely different kind of shark.

In the Any Given Sunday scene in question, Foxx’s Willie Beaman and LL Cool J’s Julian Washington were to get into it over mishandling the ball. With tensions building apparently just from being on the same field as one other, LL Cool J reached over star Al Pacino and gave Foxx a message-sending smack on the face, to which Foxx responded, “If you want to do this, we can do this.”

LL Cool J tried to defend it as an attempt at improv,only to do it again in another take. According to cinematographer Sal Totino, Beaman was now steamin’, saying, “What does Jamie do? F*cking hits him back. Al Pacino is in the middle of the scene acting, doesn’t know that a real fight’s going over his head,” since the scene called for Pacino’s coach Tony D’Amato to break up the spar between the characters. As Pacino later recalled after splitting up Foxx and LL Cool J, “I had some sense.”

But that was hardly the last time Foxx and LL Cool J got into it on the set of Any Given Sunday. At another point, LL Cool J instigated a moment that found Foxx’s head being smashed into a camera crane. Totino remembered, “I thought he snapped his neck. Jamie pops up, full-blown fight going on. Punches are flying everywhere.” After yet another breakup — Pacino sat out playing referee this time around — Oliver Stone was miffed to find out that the crew put the stars’ ticket-selling faces ahead of actually filming the shot. Now that is a dude you don’t want to piss off on a movie set.

Any Given Sunday has a pretty interesting backstory to it, but these brawls on the set show just what can happen when one person thinks they’re better than the other, neglecting to remember that there’s a $55 million movie at stake. While Foxx doesn’t appear to have any plans to reunite with LL Cool J on the big screen, he will get “back in action” with Cameron Diaz (Miami Sharks owner Christina Pagniacci) for one of his return movies after suffering a “medical complication” last year.

No cameras, no gridiron, who do ya got in a fight between Jamie Foxx and LL Cool J? Name your winner below!