Gerard Butler Says He Was 'Burning Alive' After Accidentally Rubbing Acid on His Face While Filming
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Gerard Butler really committed to his new role in Plane.
The Scottish actor, 53, revealed on Late Night with Seth Meyers Thursday that, while filming a scene in which he plays a pilot in the new movie, he accidentally burned his eyes, nose and throat with phosphoric acid.
"No matter what I'm doing, I manage to hurt myself," Butler joked to Seth Meyers, before agreeing with the host that he was "naturally clumsy."
The actor then described his latest injury, during a scene in which he was "trying to find something that's wrong with the plane before we can take off for this final sequence," he recalled.
"Now I'm sticking my hand between these two wheels, kind of pretending that I know what I'm doing," Butler said. "Every time I bring my hands out, they're covered in blood and green fluid, right? And I'm like, 'I don't know what this green fluid is.' "
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Late Night with Seth Meyers/YouTube Gerard Butler
RELATED: Gerard Butler: Near-Death Surfing Accident Was "Close Call"
The 300 star then added that they were shooting in Puerto Rico, where he was "covered in sweat" from the heat.
"I'm rubbing my face and, suddenly, it's in my throat. It's in my mouth. It's up my nose. It's in my eyes," Butler continued. "It's burning my face — and I mean burning."
He added, "It turns out that this is essentially phosphoric acid."
And while real-life airline pilots watching the scene looked on in seeming panic, Butler said crew members deliberated whether to throw water on his face. "And I'm just, like, burning alive," he said. "It was intense."
The star thankfully recovered, even though he added that it "burned for hours" — "But it was great for the sequence," he said with a laugh.
Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Gerard Butler and Seth Meyers
Butler's latest on-set injury comes five years after, in 2017, he admitted he had been hospitalized three times that year alone.
Around the time he was injured in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles, Butler revealed to Meyers, 49, that he's a fan of risky behavior, and even injected himself with bee venom — twice! — in an attempt to treat some painful inflammation.
Butler also suffered a near-death surfing accident in 2012, in which he was pulled underwater and dragged over a reef in Northern California while filming the surf movie Of Men and Mavericks.
"I was going to go back that day," the star said on the U.K.'s The Graham Norton Show about his love of the sport. "I was actually in the ambulance and wanted to go back, which was a little crazy, but it's pretty addictive."
Plane is in theaters now.
