Aaron Taylor-Johnson describes the Bullet Train scene that sent him to the hospital

Sara Netzley
·3 min read
Aaron Taylor-Johnson describes the Bullet Train scene that sent him to the hospital
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Bullet Train's destination turned out to be the hospital for Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

At Monday's premiere of the Brad Pitt action flick, Taylor-Johnson revealed that he had to seek medical attention following a fight scene gone awry.

"We were in a fight sequence, and I get drop-kicked across the room. And the one sharp bit of the corner where there wasn't any padding took a chunk out of my hand," Taylor-Johnson told Variety at the Los Angeles red-carpet event. "And I literally went wham, passed out."

But the Kick-Ass star didn't want to stop work.

"I came back and was like 'Should we go again?' And they were like 'No, no, no. You gotta go get stitches at the hospital,'" he said. "So then I spent the night in the hospital."

Taylor-Johnson pointed to his low-carb nutrition plan as the possible cause. "I was on some crazy mad Keto diet," he said. "I got all scrawny and lean for this, so I basically had low blood sugar levels."

Taylor-Johnson said it's actually a badge of honor to sustain an injury on a David Leitch set; the director is known for helming high-octane action films including Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson attends the Los Angeles premiere of Columbia Pictures' "Bullet Train" at Regency Village Theatre on August 01, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson attends the Los Angeles premiere of Columbia Pictures' "Bullet Train" at Regency Village Theatre on August 01, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.

Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images Aaron Taylor-Johnson

"When you sign up for a David Leitch movie, you know you gotta get a couple battle scars," Taylor-Johnson said. "Some war wounds."

The film stars Pitt as a disillusioned assassin sent on a "simple" job to retrieve a briefcase on a bullet train. Naturally, the job's not as easy as it seems, and he learns that the train is full of rival assassins on the same mission. Bullet Train also stars Joey King, Andrew Koji,  Brian Tyree Henry, Sandra Bullock, Hiroyuki Sanada, Zazie Beetz, Michael Shannon, Logan Lerman, and Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (a.k.a. Bad Bunny).

On the red carpet, Taylor-Johnson praised the upbeat, collaborative mood during filming.

"We all just came and had fun," he said. "David Leitch gave us so much room to improv and ad-lib, and we really just wanted to make these characters pop. I mean, it's such a heightened reality, the tone of this movie. [These characters] are so bombastic, so you wanna make them lifted and pop. So hopefully we've done that."

In July 2021, Leitch told EW that audiences should brace themselves for a never-before-seen side of Pitt.

"The one thing that I can say, you're going to see Brad Pitt do something, a kind of performance, that I've never seen him do," he teased. "I just remember going, 'Wow! He's done it. I had no idea he was going to do that with this and take it in that way.'"

Bullet Train, based on an international best-selling thriller by Kotaro Isaka, premieres on Friday.

A representative for Taylor-Johnson did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

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