Actors Who Almost Killed Their Co-Stars
As prestigious or glamorous as being on a film set may seem, it can equally be as dangerous to be on one too — even with seemingly adequate caution and supervision. Even without potentially lethal props like guns and swords lying around, danger looms in the most unprecedented ways — which can be difficult for even the most capable safety coordinators on set to foresee.
In the case of actors, this risk is amplified considering that they often have to perform scenes that could be dangerous for themselves or their co-stars, and it's not as easy to replace an actor who's injured, rendered unavailable to shoot, midway through production. A mistimed stunt, lack of adequate training with tools and heavy machinery, neglectful supervision, or even a seemingly innocent prank can really be all it takes for actors to injure their co-stars and endanger their lives. Not to mention, it also can put a long and expensive hold on a film's production, invite unwanted lawsuits, and endanger the film's survival. Here are a few stories of actors who came eerily close to unintentionally taking the lives of their co-stars on set.
Hiroyuki Sanada nearly decapitated Tom Cruise
We'd just be stating the obvious by saying that Tom Cruise dances with danger in each of his death-defying stunts. With each passing movie the actor performs in, the list of movie scenes that nearly killed Cruise keeps getting longer. And while 2003's period film "The Last Samurai" doesn't exactly stand out among the actor's other commercially weightier movies — actually having aged poorly for its problematic portrayals and white-savior tropes — the film happens to be a part of that list for one particular occurrence during production.
Cruise and co-star Hiroyuki Sanada were shooting a sword fight scene whilst riding mechanical horses. Sanada was using a real sword that he swung towards Cruise, whose mechanical horse was supposed to fall down in order to dodge the sword. But the horse malfunctioned, and Sanada had to quickly regain control of his sword, which wasn't easy given that his other hand was operating his horse. Sanada told reporters (via The Guardian), "Tom's neck was right in front of me and I tried to stop swinging my sword, but it was hard to control with one hand." Thankfully, the actor managed to stop the sword just half an inch away from Cruise's neck. Sanada continued, "The film crew watching from the side all screamed because they thought Tom's head would fly off."
Gerard Butler accidentally slashed Hilary Swank's head
Though Gerard Butler's character is the one who dies in the 2007 romance "P.S. I Love You" (not a spoiler, he dies in the first 10 minutes!), in reality, it was his co-star Hilary Swank who nearly lost her life on the set of the film. In an appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show," Butler recounted the experience of shooting a seemingly harmless scene with him dancing around the room only wearing boxer shorts and suspenders in front of Swank, and how it ended in a freak accident that sent Swank to the hospital.
Butler said, "I literally shot that scene for a day and a half, and I had to dance like an idiot in the suspenders. ... At one point, the clip, which was a crocodile clip, got stuck in the television as I'm crawling towards [Swank], and she's right in front of me, and she's laughing hysterically. The camera people had these plastic fronts to protect themselves from this crocodile. It was so dangerous. Because I had to ping it, and it would go [flying] past my face. I'm crawling towards the bed, it gets stuck, it releases, flies over my head, hits her in the head, slashes her head." He continued, "I cut her open. You could even see the teeth of the [crocodile]. She has to get taken to the hospital. ... I'm just sitting there in my Irish boxer shorts and my boots and a pair of socks, and I just started crying."
Stephanie Beatriz said she almost beheaded Anthony Mackie
Stephanie Beatriz, who plays Quiet in Peacock's 2023 series "Twisted Metal," may have picked up her character's ax-throwing skills too well. Sure, she may not be capable of the intense vehicular combat that Quiet is, but the actress came close to beheading her co-star Anthony Mackie with her newfound skills. A scene entailed Quiet hurling an ax at John Doe (Mackie) and narrowly missing him. Talk about method acting, because that's exactly what Beatriz managed to do while filming the scene — much to her surprise and shock at how close she came to taking out the MCU's new Captain America.
Beatriz told NBC Insider, "There was a day where I almost took off Anthony's head as we were both running toward camera and I threw an axe and it whizzed by his ear." It's unknown if the axe was a rubber prop or the real deal (we hope not!), but from the sound of it, it was still dangerous enough to cause some serious harm. She continued, "I was like, 'Oh my God, I almost killed Anthony Mackie!' But [my throwing skills] are getting better. They look great on camera, which is all you really need."
Emily Blunt crashed herself and Tom Cruise into a tree
When you're acting in a film alongside notorious cinematic daredevil Tom Cruise, you can't help but get the bug of doing your own stunts too — you're either motivated into doing it, or you just feel "obliged" to do it (as his "Mission: Impossible" co-star Simon Pegg jokingly admitted). Emily Blunt was bitten by the stunt bug when working with Cruise in 2014's sci-fi movie "Edge of Tomorrow," having gotten ripped to play Rita Vrataski in the film and nearly breaking her nose while doing a stunt. However, one particular day was noteworthy for how it almost led to the end for herself and Cruise.
Detailing the near-death experience on "Conan," the actress had to drive a van with Cruise seated as a passenger for a scene. Blunt said she lost control of the vehicle and crashed it into a tree, nearly costing both the actors' lives. She said, "I tear down this path, and Tom's being very quiet behind me. And suddenly I just hear him under his breath as I approach the right-hand turn, I hear him going 'Brake, brake, brake. Brake. Brake, brake, brake ... Oh God. Brake, brake, brake. Brake the car! Brake the car!' I left it too late, and so drove us into a tree. ... I almost killed Tom Cruise," Blunt admitted.
Dolph Lundgren punched Sylvester Stallone into the ICU
The "Rocky" movies pack quite the punch in the bloody intensity depicted in their boxing matches. As it turns out, one of those punches nearly gave a permanent KO to franchise star Sylvester Stallone. While shooting the climactic match in "Rocky IV," Stallone, who was also directing the film, instructed co-star and on-screen rival Dolph Lundgren to forgo their choreography and really "try and clock [him]." Lundgren threw a punch so hard on Stallone's chest that it sent Stallone into the ICU for nine days.
Stallone shone a new light on this incident in his 2023 Netflix documentary "Sly," saying, "Dolph Lundgren, he pulverized me. Later that night, my heart started to swell — which happens when the heart hits the chest. Then my blood pressure went up to 260, and they thought I was going to be talking to angels. Next thing I know, I'm in intensive care, where I'm surrounded by nuns, and I thought, 'Okay, that's curtains.'"
What was Lundgren's response? "All I did was obey orders," the actor told Men's Health in a manner that stayed true to the unsympathetic nature of his "Rocky" character Ivan Drago. Lundgren downplayed the seriousness of the incident, saying that he heard after Stallone was admitted to hospital that they were blaming him for it.
Terry O'Quinn unknowingly stabbed Matthew Fox with a real knife
The series finale of ABC's "Lost" left fans confused, particularly about the long-running theory of whether all the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 stranded on the island were "dead the whole time" or not. One mishap during the finale's production nearly mirrored that theory for show lead Matthew Fox, as episode director Jack Bender and Fox's co-star Terry O'Quinn recounted to Vulture.
While filming a close-quarters fight scene between protagonist Jack Shephard (Fox) and a humanoid embodiment of the Man in Black (played by O'Quinn), the actors constantly switched between a real prop knife that's used for insert shots, and its fake rubber counterpart used for stunts through various shots for the sequence. However, the two actors got "caught up in the action," which led to a near-fatal mixup between the two knives. For a take where the Man in Black stabs Jack, O'Quinn mistakenly picked up the real knife and plunged it into Fox.
Fortunately, Fox was wearing a protective pad under his shirt that prevented the knife from penetrating his skin. The two actors were able to laugh off this near-death incident, as Bender revealed, "The scene ended with [Matthew Fox] rolling off and next thing I know these guys are f***ing laughing. I'm going, 'What's going on?' Terry goes, 'I f***ed up.' I went, 'Oh my God.'"
Chris Lowell suffocated Carey Mulligan with a pillow
2020's vigilante thriller "Promising Young Woman" is, by no means, an easy watch, with its sensitive subject matters being depicted with an unflinching lens. Many highlight one particular scene towards the end — spoiler alert! — where Al (Chris Lowell), held captive by Cassie (Carey Mulligan), overpowers Cassie and smothers her with a pillow. What makes the scene so excruciating to watch is that the camera lingers on the murder for a full two-minute-long single-take shot. It's more disturbing when you realize that Mulligan was really suffocating in the shot.
Lowell told PureWow how close he came to killing Mulligan while filming the scene. Director Emerald Fennell suggested performing the scene for real, having the stunt coordinator stop Lowell right before he could do any serious damage to Mulligan. The two actors performed the scene for four takes, and on the final take, Lowell really started suffocating Carey. "You know, it's hard to know that you're doing that because the scene is one where she's flipping out," he reasoned.
Gratefully, the stunt coordinator stopped Lowell just in the nick of time, and Mulligan "sat up and took the pillow off and tears just exploded out of her eyes," as Lowell recalled. He added, "Everyone flipped out, and Emerald came out and made sure everyone was okay and asked, 'Can we do just one more take?' And I was like, 'Absolutely not, that's it.' I couldn't kill the lead of this film."
Will Ferrell almost killed Zach Galifianakis with nuts
2012's political comedy "The Campaign" pitted comedy mavericks Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis against each other as politicians on two competing campaigns, but the two actors took the competitive spirits to the next level on the sets of the film with their prankmanship. However, one of those pranks crossed the lines into becoming a lethal scare.
Promoting the film on "The Daily Show," Ferrell told host Jon Stewart (via HuffPost), "We had a lot of fun. There were a lot of pranks we pulled on each other. [...] Zach has a nut allergy ... and so I had the craft service guy put some walnuts in his breakfast burrito and his throat closed up, to the point where they were like, 'Someone call a doctor ... no seriously, someone call a doctor!'"
That's quite a killing joke, though some could argue whether it was a funny one at all, considering how close it came to taking Galifianakis' life. "The EMTs [Emergency Medical Technicians] came, and they said, 'If [it] had been five minutes later, he would have died,'" Ferrell admitted.
Emilia Clarke almost ran over Samuel L. Jackson
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been losing its critical and commercial prestige in the past few years, case in point being the dwindling viewership numbers of 2023's "Secret Invasion." But aside from killing audience interest in the juggernaut franchise, the show also nearly cost the MCU its prized veteran: Samuel L. Jackson.
"I nearly ran him over," confessed Jackson's "Secret Invasion" co-star Emilia Clarke to Yahoo! Entertainment, detailing how she came close to killing Jackson on the show's set as a result of inadequate prep time. She said, "They put me in a Lada, which is like a very old Russian car." Clarke said that the interior of the vehicle was like nothing she'd ever driven before but that there simply wasn't enough time to teach her how to drive it. "They're saying, 'We've gotta go. We're shooting. Come on honey. Just go.'"
The actress braved the challenge and entered the car, only to make a deadly mistake: "I pressed the wrong thing, I pressed the accelerator rather than the brake." Making matters worse, Jackson was positioned directly in the path of the approaching vehicle. Luckily, Clarke hit the brakes well before anything serious could happen. Jackson had no qualms about the incident, as Clarke revealed, "He was very gentlemanly and lovely and nice. ... Then I cried a little bit and someone else drove it for me."
Stephen Graham crashed a golf cart with Leonardo DiCaprio
2002's "Gangs of New York" was the first of many successful collaborations between Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese, and the film marked a major transition in DiCaprio's career from romantic leads to dramatically mature roles. However, a reckless accident on the film's set nearly deprived cinephiles of DiCaprio and the rest of his vivid filmography.
During the film's production, DiCaprio and co-star Stephen Graham had struck up a friendship, and the former's golf cart (used for driving around the set) caught the latter's eye. "I've asked him if I can have a go," Graham revealed on "The Jonathan Ross Show." "I'm driving this golf cart straight down the hill, and we've come to a corner, and I've looked at DiCaprio. ... We're bombing down this hill, and as I've turned the corner, I've hit a brick ... and the golf cart started to tip. It's gone like in slow motion, and as it's gone, his leg's underneath, and it looks like it's going to land on his foot. And then he just pulled it in and it hit the floor."
After the pair recovered from that wild ride, DiCaprio told Graham, "We nearly ... you could have broken my leg! ... This is a $150 million film, we might not have been able to film it!" After Graham profusely apologized, DiCaprio said, "I f***ing love you man. You're crazy."
Hulk Hogan nearly caused Kurt Fuller to choke to death on a check
Wrestling heavyweight Hulk Hogan may have taken the title of his 1989 debut movie "No Holds Barred" a little too literally, as per his co-star Kurt Fuller, who played the film's antagonist. Fuller told ComicBook.com how Hogan turned a harmless prop into a choking hazard while filming a relatively tame scene.
"Hulk was not an actor at the time," he explained. "But there was a scene where I offer him a lot of money to try and steal him to my network. ... And he looks at the check, he shoves it down my throat. And I supposedly swallow it and then his line is, 'I won't be around when this check clears.' Okay, pretty funny line. Well, he didn't know that you're supposed to fake shoving the check down my throat. Nobody told him."
Fuller went on trying to make sense of Hogan's actions, saying that it's Hogan's wrestling background that made him think he had to try to do the stunt for real without checking to see if his co-star was on the same page as him. "He shoved the check down my throat and I almost died," Fuller said. "I mean, it was stuck in my windpipe and they had to go in and pull it out, and he went, 'Oh, sorry, man, I didn't know we were supposed to fake that.'" At the time, Fuller said, he didn't complain to anybody — he said he needed the work, and after all, who's going to complain about a man as enormous and dangerous as Hulk Hogan?
Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan's fateful accident shook the nation
In 1982, Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan suffered a near-fatal injury during the filming of "Coolie" that almost cost India its most beloved star. While shooting a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar, Issar accidentally punched Bachchan too hard in his abdomen, causing a rupture in the latter's spleen. Bachchan was hospitalized for the next several months, during which the shooting stalled and the nation was on tenterhooks, awaiting news on Bachchan's condition with bated breaths. Thousands of fans supported him through this, offering blood and organizing prayers and vigils in temples across the country for the actor's speedy recovery. Bachchan even received a visit from India's then-prime minister, Indira Gandhi.
After a turbulent treatment phase — during which the actor was even declared "clinically dead" for a few minutes — Bachchan pulled through and resumed shooting. The relief from his recovery prompted "Coolie" director Manmohan Desai to alter the film's ending from one where Bachchan's character in the film dies, to one where he survives — a story arc that metatextually paralleled the frenzy surrounding Bachchan's real-life recuperation.
"Coolie" was released in 1983 to blockbuster status — partly credited to the media sensation surrounding Bachchan's accident. It reaffirmed the nation's love and admiration for the actor and his inspirational resilience in the face of his near-death experience. And while neither Bachchan nor any crew members blamed Issar, the actor cited the incident as having tarnished his reputation and career.