Jake Gyllenhaal Suffered A Gruesome Injury On The Road House Remake Set
The new "Road House" remake brings the 1989 cult classic to the modern day but still has all of the same awesome fight choreography that fans would expect. And while "Road House" star Jake Gyllenhaal got ripped for his role as a former MMA fighter so that he could adequately show off some skills during the various fight scenes, Gyllenhaal actually got hurt pretty badly during the filming of one sequence.
While appearing with co-star Conor McGregor on the "Armchair Expert" podcast to discuss the upcoming film, Gyllenhaal described shooting one fight scene where they were working around glass, with the star ultimately putting his hand into it. "I felt the glass going in my hand," he explained. Yet it was far from the only thing the actor had to contend with. He said that everyone in the cast faced "stuff like that all the time," while he developed a staph infection at one point. "My whole arm swelled up," the actor recalled.
Fortunately, it sounds like he came out of it fine, which is good to hear since staph infections can be deadly if they enter the bloodstream. But Gyllenhaal lived to roundhouse kick for another day.
Jake Gyllenhaal got hurt on Road House even when not filming
Over the years, quite a few actors have permanently damaged their bodies while working on movies. Luckily, it sounds as though Jake Gyllenhaal didn't deal with anything that couldn't be resolved somewhat quickly, but one has to imagine he knew there was a chance of injury when signing on for "Road House." He even had to watch out for potential injuries when he wasn't actively filming something.
Gyllenhaal recently spoke on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" about working with co-star and MMA fighter Conor McGregor. One day, while the pair watched footage of one fight scene, McGregor was giving Gyllenhaal notes on how to make the fight look more realistic. As Gyllenhaal told it, "[McGregor] was talking to me really close, and he was like, 'Yeah, that left hook looks good. But then when you do it like, boom!' And he hit me by mistake."
Gyllenhaal admitted that he got back at McGregor, though, when he (accidentally) slammed his face into a car door. As an actual MMA fighter, it sounds like that didn't faze McGregor all that much. Gyllenhaal suffered for his art with "Road House" — but since the Rotten Tomatoes score for the remake has surpassed the original, it seems like it was worth it.