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I read this line in Merriam Webster word of the day-fastidious
"I may have thrown in a little thing here or there, but I'm pretty fastidious about sticking to the script if I like it…."
— Michael Shannon, Screen International, 21 Nov. 2016
Can someone please tell me what that line meant in the context. I'd like to know only the meaning of I may have thrown in a little thing here
or there.
If you have a screenplay (a script), there is dialogue. Generally, actors need to memorize the lines and speak them as written.
Sometimes, directors will tolerate some differences with the script when the actors say the lines in a slightly different way, when they do not "stick to" the script (follow it exactly).
To throw in a little thing here and there means: to put in small changes of your own to the lines as written. Here and there refers to here and there [in the script].
The speaker is saying that he may have added a few words or expressions of this own. This can make it better if the actor is a great actor (a Meryl Streep, for instance) or it may just annoy the director.
The generic form of this idiomatic expression is "to throw in (a little) something", meaning, "to add your own personal changes". Example:
The recipe was pretty dull so I threw in a little something to spice it up.
As with many other idiomatic expressions you can "throw in a little something" to personalize it:
I may have thrown in a little thing here or there
I tossed in a little thing I came up with.
Or, as an (already outdated) slang expression:
