Did These ‘Jaws’ Stars Really Hate Each Other? Inside the Dreyfuss-Shaw Feud Rumors

Lauren Novak June 18, 3:23 pm

JAWS, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss1975 — Everett Collection

While Jaws is one of the most popular movies of all time, it was famously hard to film. Production delays — largely related to malfunctioning animatronic sharks and Steven Spielberg‘s decision to actually shoot in the Atlantic Ocean instead of on a sound stage — caused the film to go over budget, run behind schedule and caused a lot of downtime for the cast. In fact, the troubles with the shark are so well known that a recent play about the behind-the-scenes problems on the set of Jaws was called The Shark Is Broken, written by Jaws star Robert Shaw‘s son Ian. But technical issues weren’t the only problem that plagued the film — issues between the actors also troubled the production.

Spielberg often referred to “the great Shaw-Dreyfuss feud” on set, since leading men Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss particularly didn’t get along. Dreyfuss once said about Shaw, according to BBC, “In private, he was the kindest, gentlest, funniest guy you ever met. Then we’d walk to the set, and on our way to the set he was possessed by some evil troll, who would then make me his victim.”

JAWS, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, 1975

Everett Collection

Spielberg added, “But it was also Quint and Hooper living out that relationship as Shaw and Dreyfuss. Robert would basically humiliate Richard into taking a chance. For instance, Robert would say, ‘I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you climb up to the top of the mast on the Orca and jump off into the water.'”

Although it probably made things awkward on set, some critics have said that the conflict improved the acting due to the tension you can see onscreen. It adds to the uneasy feeling you get watching the entire movie, waiting for that dreaded shark fin to appear in the water.

Everett Collection

Now, fans can get a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes feud with Ian Shaw’s play. He has had the idea for many years but it took him a while to be able to write it. He explained, “At my age, when you hit 50, I think that that’s less of an issue, because I’ve already had my own career now, however humble it is. I’m proud of my career, which is separate, and now it just felt right. I was very hesitant initially, I’ve come to terms with it because people seem to be enjoying the show, but it took my friends and family to persuade me to even write the thing. I was very reluctant, I thought it was a crazy and silly thing to do, but I oddly feel comfortable doing it now.”

With recent coverage of the play, the Shaw-Dreyfuss feud has been brought back into the limelight, leading Dreyfuss to finally comment on it. “I did not like the play because it based itself on a feud that never happened,” Dreyfuss recently told USA Today of The Shark Is Broken. In a 2023 interview with Vanity Fair, Dreyfuss said of the play, “It was [a] pretty awful [experience watching it]. Ian [Shaw] — who has more than any right to write whatever he wants — never called me and said, ‘Give me some background.’ Or, ‘Give me your take on this and this.’ And they just decided to make my character a big jerk.”

He recalled of their alleged feud, “There were people on the crew who said, ‘What’s this Richard Dreyfuss/Robert Shaw show that’s going on here?’ When we were surrounded by lots of other people, Robert would take digs at me, and I would take a dig at him. But that was only to make the hours go better, faster. We didn’t take any of that seriously. … That was not a feud. A feud went on forever. We never had any bad feeling between us, ever.”

Ian Shaw’s play was based on Robert Shaw’s diaries from the making of Jaws, so while the two men’s viewpoints seem to be in opposition, we’ll likely never know what truly happened on the Orca.