We’ve all seen it a thousand times — actors swinging coffee cups at 45-degree angles as they talk, or passing cups to each other like they’re ping-pong balls. Why are coffee cup props filled with air? Of course, there are practical reasons for keeping hot coffee out of actors’ hands, but couldn’t the cups be filled with water? The sound of an obviously empty coffee cup with that tell-tale hollow sound hitting a desk just screams, “I’m fake!” It’s gotten so bad that culture magazine Slate even created the “Empty Cup Award” to honor actors for their “cup acting.” For what it’s worth, those who produce television shows are aware that the jig is up. Shawn Ryan, whose productions include the CBS police drama S.W.A.T. and the NBC sci-fi drama Timeless, says he has insisted on having liquids in cups on-screen. Yet, other producers say empty coffee cups are used for a variety of reasons, including practicality and continuity. Real coffee would be messy and difficult to manage during filming. Spills can ruin scenes and lead to wardrobe issues, and that all adds up to extra production costs. Some say if cups were filled, the level would need to be carefully tracked and maintained between takes, which can be time-consuming, and that, too, adds costs to production. Nevertheless, in this day and age of ever-evolving technology, wouldn’t you think there would be some way to come up with a weighted coffee cup, so at least the sound would be more realistic? In the end, one thing everyone seems to agree on is that empty cups are less odd than fake drinking.
