While filming this Brett Ratner comedy—about employees of an apartment building (including Ben Stiller) looking to recoup their losses from the greedy architect of a Ponzi scheme (Alda)—the actor spent an unfortunate amount of time either locked in a truck or lying facedown on the pavement. “Every time I pass a spot in the street in Columbus Circle, I say to my wife, ‘That’s where I was facedown on the pavement for eight hours,’ ” says Alda,

who had one particularly harrowing day on set when things did not go according to plan. “I’m filming this scene where I’m in the back of a truck that turns over and I’m trying to escape,” he explains of what turned into an on-set mishap. “They got me in the truck, but then they couldn’t get the door back open. They had to take a welding device to try to make a hole in the screen between the cab and the back of the truck. Sparks flew into the back where there were all these oily rags; I thought I was going to blow up! They finally got the door open, and then I lied facedown on the pavement to play out the rest of the scene. This is the glamorous life of movie stars."