Are The Pictures At The End Of The Hangover Real?

When "The Hangover" arrived in theaters back in 2009, it was a breath of fresh air amid a sea of typical Hollywood comedies. It was instantly quotable thanks to the lovable group of idiots played by Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, and Justin Bartha. It sees a bachelor party gone wrong when the groom goes missing after a wild night of partying in Las Vegas, and his friends retrace their steps to try and figure out what happened. Thankfully by the end of it, everything goes smoothly and they all make the wedding on time... Although someone should've mentioned that planning a bachelor party so close to the big day itself is just asking for trouble.

By the time the gang's escape is over, they find a camera filled with the photographic evidence of their wild night across Vegas — and they all vow to only look at the pictures once. Director Todd Phillips treated audiences to all the hedonistic photos of the gang over the credits, from Stu (Ed Helms) pulling his own tooth out — to Alan (Zach Galifianakis) getting intimate with an older lady.

But are those shots carefully staged, or were they more off-the-cuff captures of wild Vegas behavior? They could've been done either way. Luckily Todd Phillips and Zach Galifianakis recently set the record straight about the photos.

Director Todd Phillips, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis spoke to MTV after "The Hangover" arrived in theaters, revealing that they shot the infamous end credits photos during production. "Those pictures were shot during the time we were in Vegas," Phillips said. "I would just go out with the guys with my regular camera with the flash and take these pictures." He also stressed that they tried to be as crazy as possible, saying "Everything that we photographed we went and did."

One of the most infamous moments seen in the photos saw Alan getting intimate with an older lady in an elevator. Ed Helms jokingly revealed, "That's a cameo by Susan Boyle," also saying "I'm amazed that she got talked into it." Yeah, of course she did. Although Zach Galifianakis seemingly regrets that particular joke, saying "I got talked into it. I offered Todd's assistant $1,000 if he could convince Todd to not have that in the movie."

Clearly Phillips, Helms, and Galifianakis all have a pretty playful nature, so take most things they say as a joke. But it's interesting that the director says they did everything in the photographs. Does that mean Galifianakis really posed with a live tiger? As per IMDB, the scenes involving animals "were mostly filmed with trained animals." While Ed Helms previously told LiveAbout.com "We got stupidly close to that tiger on numerous occasions" — so maybe that photo was real too.