9 Movie Scenes That Weirdly Echoed Tragic Moments in Actors’ Real Lives

Movie fans love talking about strange coincidences on screen. Sometimes it’s just bad luck and pattern-seeking doing its thing, leading viewers to draw connections that may not actually exist between the film’s narrative and real-life events. Other times, the events depicted on the screen are so oddly similar to reality that you can’t help but think the movie predicted the future somehow. Obviously, these similarities are not actual predictions, but they do make certain movies feel much heavier when you revisit them later.

Julie Andrews — That’s Life! (1986)

In That’s Life!, Julie Andrews plays Gillian, a singer terrified that a throat problem could destroy her voice and career. This may sound like a standard movie drama until you remember that in 1997, Andrews had throat surgery for noncancerous nodules. And guess what? That procedure permanently damaged her singing voice.

Kim Walker and Jeremy Applegate — Heathers (1988)

Jokes in Heathers are anything but light-hearted, and some lines become disturbingly painful when you know what happened in real life. Kim Walker’s Heather Chandler throws out a joke about brain tumors, while another character says he doesn’t think he could handle suicide. Years later, Walker died from a brain tumor, and Jeremy Applegate died by suicide. That’s some Final Destination stuff.

Adrienne King — Friday the 13th (1980–1981)

Adrienne King’s character, Alice Hardy, is a true survivor in the first Friday the 13th movies, but that’s only after being terrified by Jason a bunch of times. Not long after the sequel, King had to confront a real-life stalker who obsessed over her. This situation is even more messed up, since back then, the authorities didn’t care if someone was being stalked, often dismissing such cases as unimportant and failing to provide adequate protection for victims. Talk about living in a nightmare.